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THE 
HEALING OF THE NATIONS 



BY 
MORRIS O. EVANS, Ph.D., D.D. 

Author of Christianity and Churchmanship 




BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY RlCHARO G. BADGER 

All Rights Reserved 






©C1A778066 
Made in the United States of America 



Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company, New York, U. S. A. 

NOV 12 '23 



v4 



TO 

MY CHILDREN 

AND THE DEAR MEMORY OF 

LELAND 

WHO GAVE HIS LIFE WILLINGLY 

AT IVOIRY 

IK THE ARGONNE FOREST 
27TH SEPTEMBER, 1918. 



"YOU ASK ME WHY" 

In the interweaving of Lord Tennyson's poems with the 
treatment of my theme, the object was not simply to use 
the poet's work as a foil to give this treatise an artificial 
unity, but rather to trace the organic development of 
Christian thought and ideals from medieval times to the 
present day along the lines of the laureate's own conception 
of the movements of history, some of the most significant 
of which he did not live to see, but in which he would have 
greatly rejoiced. Like his great compeer and friend, Rob- 
ert Browning, with the true poet's prophetic insight, he has 
helped us to catch 

"The deep pulsations of the world." 1 

I would respectfully suggest that the reader look up all 
the biblical references, which are not given merely for the 
purpose of verification, but most often because they eluci- 
date or supplement the thought expressed in the text. 

Seattle, Wash. 
Memorial Day, 1922. 

1 In Memoriam, xcv. 



"In the fall that I was five, Tennyson came on my horizon. 
Not dawned: that is not the word. There is a feeling of 
evening sunshine in that memory. It was the year that I 
fell out of our apple tree and broke my hip. I remember 
a good deal of pain . . . but the great event of that 
year was, and is, that it was then I first met Tennyson. 
No wonder that, when I read the modern critic's scorn of 
the great Victorian, 'I'd rather be a dog and bay the 
moon. 5 

"The book was blue and gold; it had no pictures, and it 
was called Songs from Tennyson. And, crowning joy, it 
was read to me by the big brother whom I most worship- 
fully adored . . . out in our orchard, under our apple 
tree. The music of the poems absolutely healed my pain 
as long as the reading lasted. Perhaps a modern doctor 
would call it hypnosis." (Mrs. H. D. Norman, The Atlantic 
Monthly, June, 1922, p. 800.) 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 
FOREWOBD V 

CHAPTER 

I. The Holy Cup of Healing 13 

The author's purpose — The sources — The lure of romance 
— The Arthurian cycle — Geoffrey's chronicle — Walter Map 
— Malory — Medieval morality — Tennyson — Nennius — King 
Arthur— Guinevere. 

II. The Round Table 27 

Arthur's cabinet — A Christian ruler — Religion and mo- 
rality — Positivism — Browning on Shelley — Christianity un- 
der arms — The doctrine of non-resistance — The Jewish 
paradox — The United States and the Great War — The 
American spirit — The limit of tolerance — A warless world 
— The Hague Conference — The League of Nations — The 
Genoa Economic Conference — The Washington Conference 
on disarmament — President Harding's ecumenical address 
— The Conference program — The outcome of the Con- 
ference — "Mental disarmament" — A moral experiment — 
The new internationalism — The last resort — American iso- 
lation — America's mission and opportunity — Disrupting 
elements — Blemishes on the scutcheon — American leader- 
ship — President Harding's valedictory — 'Impressions of 
the Washington Conference — The growth of democracy — 
A world conscience. 

III. The Reign of Humanity 62 

The feudal system — Women of the romance period — 
Relics of barbarism — The fallacy of "superiority" — Con- 
ventional Christianity — Reform Christianity — "The re- 
mainder of wrath" — Vandalism — What will end war — 
The cost of war — The solidarity of the race — The reign of 
good will — The social organism — Political economy — The 
religious consciousness — Science — The moral sense — A 
moral fallacy — An international moral code — Surface 
Christianity — The Christian ethic — One Father — Patriot- 
ism and humanity — Pseudo-patriotism — The ideal nation 
— The religion of service — The Christian dynamic — Na- 
tional autonomy — The law of survival — The militarist 
fallacy — The Beatitudes — The wealth of nations — The 
"balance of power" policy — A new humanity — The out- 
lawry of war — The moral element in war — The new di- 
plomacy — The supremacy of the spiritual, 
ix 



x v Contents ^ 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IV. The Age of Faith and Reason 106 

The rationality of history — The rise and fall of nations — 
Christ or Caesar — A new reading of history — The new 
order of Chivalry — The Holy Grail — The scientific temper 
— A spiritual universe — A rational faith — Reason and 
emotion — Superstition — Authority in religion — Progressive 
revelation — A progressive faith — "Hard to believe" — The 
divine immanence — Miracles as evidence. 

V. The Sovereignty of Womanhood 128 

The Holy Grail reappears — A Convent cell — In Arthur's 
hall — "The pure in heart" — The sovereignty of woman- 
hood — The emotional type: Mary Magdalene — The prac- 
tical type: Florence Nightingale — Feminine theology — 
The Christian conception of marriage — Paul and women 
— Motherhood — Woman in the early church — Woman in 
the Middle Ages — The emancipation of woman — The 
housekeeper — Sex-relation — Dante and Beatrice. 

VI. Christian Symbolism 146 

An agricultural myth — The Sancgreal — A beautiful in- 
stinct — New uses for old material — Symbols — The Eu- 
charist — The sacramental formula — "The cup of bless- 
ing" — Properties of the Grail — Apocryphal literature — 
The pleroma — Apostolic miracles — Ecclesiastical miracles 
— Science and miracles — Value-judgment. 

VII. The Quest of the Ideal 167 

The quest of the Holy Grail— "The poor in spirit"— The 
sins of youth — The "unreasonableness" of Christianity — 
The Christian guerdon — The quiet disciple — "Perfect" 
people — Self-sacrifice — The bane of frivolity — The "nat- 
ural" man — Spiritual atrophy — "The powers that tend the 
soul" — The contagion of faith — The law of increase — 
Mysticism — Monasticism — The celibate — In touch with the 
infinite — Spiritual aloofness — The symmetrical life — As- 
ceticism — Practical religion — The new mysticism — Duty 
first. 

VIII. Excalibur: or the Elustveness and Insistence of Truth 197 

IX. The Christian Evangel for the Modern Man . . . . 217 

A suffering God — A moral government — The "fall" — 
Biblical inspiration — The Christian evangel. 

Supplementary Notes 236 

Index 245 



THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS 



THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS 



CHAPTER I 

THE HOLY CUP OF HEALING 

It is not my purpose to offer any criticism of a work so 
instinct with the true spirit of poetry and so remarkable 
for its artistic beauty of execution as Lord Tennyson's 
Idylls of the King. That is a task on which competent 
critics have labored with much diligence, the outcome of 
which labor has been, on the whole, to prove the poet's right 
to rank with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Browning, and Fran- 
cis Thompson, among the great spiritual forces of the nine- 
teenth century. And besides, the songs which make up the 
Idylls have been so well received by the great mass of 
English readers from its first appearance, and have been 
so largely drawn upon by many eminent authors and artists 
in their anxiety to enrich and embellish their own produc- 
tions, that no other proof is needed of its high merit and 
strong appeal. 

The Author's Purpose 

I have a much humbler aim, which is a three- fold one; 
and that is, in the first place, to refer to some of the sources 
whence the poet derived the material for his song; secondly, 
in the light of it, to examine the poet's attitude toward the 
Christian faith; and lastly, to offer a few simple reflections 
on Christian ethics and vital religion, based on the story 
of the quest of the Holy Grail. I believe that in the Idylls 
and In Memoriam we shall find that we have, not only a 
fairly complete expression of the poet's own belief, but also 

13 



14 The Healing of the Nations 

a statement of the broader and more cultured type of 
Christianity as most generally accepted by thoughtful men. 
They are both poetic and prophetic utterances, anticipat- 
ing the latest findings of theological science, anticipating 
also, as already stated, some of the more important devel- 
opments of recent history. 

The Sources 

"King" Arthur. It is not necessary, to our understand- 
ing and enjoyment of the poem, to discover whence 
Tennyson quarried the material which he has turned to so 
good a purpose, for it is complete and perfect in itself; 
but it will greatly add to our appreciation of its power 
and significance to remember that this intensely spiritual 
song is based on two traditions which at first were quite 
separate and distinct, and in no way related to each other. 
These were The History of King Arthur and The Quest 
of the Holy Grail. The History of King Arthur and his 
noble Knights of the Table Round is the first of all favorite 
English romances. It is a curious medley of history and 
myth, — tradition, imagination, and true report, hopelessly 
interwoven. The first advent of the story in Britain was 
probably in the shape of a Welsh bardic epic, sung to a 
primitive harp in the castle halls and monasteries and on 
the battlefields of old Wales. 

The Lure of Romance 

There are some things which one would like to believe in, 
though they be as elusive and unsubstantial as a dream or 
a vision of the night, and among these are some of the 
traditions concerning Arthur, "king of Britain," the hero 
of British romance and the principal figure in British 
mythology. Historical criticism, in its devotion to the bare 
truth, the unvarnished facts, has made sad havoc of some 
of these interesting old legends. We live in a practical age; 
we set the utmost value upon the sifting methods and calm 
conclusions of the sober philosopher; he is our true bene- 
factor who can separate real facts and things from mere 
fancies, false marvels, and obsolete beliefs, who shatters 



The Healing of the Nations 15 

fancy's "dome of many-colored glass" to let in upon us the 
white radiance of reality. 

And yet, sometimes, sooth to say, we quietly ask ourselves, 
whether the loss does not in some cases outweigh the gain. 
Who has not felt a twinge of regret in the hour of disillu- 
sionment, when 

"Life moves out of a red flare of dreams 
Into a common light of common hours" ? 1 

What a pleasant thing it is to be able to believe that the 
mountains and forests, deep lakes and night-meadows were 
once peopled by jinn and giants, elves and gnomes and 
fairies ; that mighty heroes and demigods have dwelt on the 
earth and tabernacled in flesh in the olden time! And is it 
not a little painful to behold such interesting beings, under 
the cold light of criticism, shrink to the dimensions of ordi- 
nary mortals like ourselves or vanish away altogether, and 
to find that instead of the fabled food and drink of the gods, 
the nectar and ambrosia, there never was any diviner fare 
than corn pone and whey, or maybe oysters and champagne ! 
We often share in a similar disappointment to the children's 
when told that Santa Claus is something or somebody else. 

"O, ye delicious fables ! where the wave 

And woods were peopled, and the air, with things 
So lovely! why, ah, why has science grave 
Scatter'd afar your sweet imaginings ?" 2 

The "dim blue Hill of Dream" has vanished. We no longer 
hear 

"The little children of the wind 

Crying solitary in lonely places. " 3 

Dryads, naiads, fays and talismans, are all but gone, and 
are taking the Red Man and the witch-doctor along with 
them. 

"The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 

1 W. B. Yeats, Land of Heart's Desire. 
a B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall). 
■William Sharp (Fiona Macleod). 



16 The Healing of the Nations 

Or chasms and wat'ry depths: all these have vanished; 
They live no longer in the faith of reason. 

And to yon starry world they now are gone, 
Spirits or gods that used to share this earth 
With man as with their friend. " 4 

But "this visible nature," we protest, "and this common 
world, is all too narrow," and even though science and liter- 
ary criticism warn us against superstition's nightly goblins 
and bid us walk in the clear bright light of the new day, we 
do not take very kindly to the change. We are slow to 
adjust ourselves to the new environment. We miss the 
"clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day" where 
nymphs were wont to disport themselves. We are loth to 
face 

"The ghastly, jarring Truth, 
That questions all, and tramples without ruth." 5 

We still would cling, no matter how despairingly, to the 
belief that 

"A deeper import 
Lurks in the legend told our infant years 
Than lies upon that truth, we live to learn." 

We miss "Tempe's golden air," our Delphi, and Mycense. 
Why should we thank Wolf for spoiling our dream, unset- 
tling our belief? 

"And after Wolf, a dozen of his like 
Proved there was never any Troy at all, 
Neither besiegers nor besieged, — nay, worse, — 
No actual Homer, no authentic text, 
No warrant for the fiction I, as fact, 
Had treasured in my heart and soul so long — 
Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold, 
Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts 
And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed 
From accidental fancy's guardian sheath." 6 

4 Coleridge, The Piccolomini, Act II, Scene 4. 

5 Stephen Phillips, New Poems, p. 95. 
"Robert Browning, Asolando, "Development." 



The Healing of the Nations 17 

Hence while we have learned the more correct evaluation 
of the Arthurian cycle, the Tale of Troy, the Nibelungen- 
lied, and other creations of the imagination, they still exer- 
cise their perennial fascination upon all classes of readers. 

While more heedful of the inner meaning of myth and 
marvel, we still like to look at Arthur and his splendid court, 
the gardens and the halls of "tower'd Camelot," through the 
gauzy Jiaze of the ages, and as we stand on the summit of 
the hills and see the cloud-shadows go sweeping by, to 
imagine the valiant knights of old galloping with hot speed 
along the mountain sides below. 7 

Some there be who, since the arrival of the "new knowl- 
edge," would seek refuge in Art from the "sordid perils 
of actual existence," while others turn for relief from the 
deathly weariness of an unromantic world to Theosophy, or 
Spiritism, or perhaps to their goblets. 

Tennyson, quite in the spirit of the new age, urges the 
importance of facing the stern facts, the true reality of 
things, and the supreme value of the Christian faith in 
fitting us to cope with the same and to be "more than con- 
querors." That is the one great purpose of his song. 
Arthur's knights were Christian soldiers in full armor. 

What amount or proportion of history and legend are 
embedded in the Arthurian story it is impossible to deter- 
mine. The actions and character of men living in the remote 
past are usually subject to distortion and exaggeration. 

So scanty are the authentic historical records of Arthur's 
career, and so confused the chronicles, that neither date 
nor place of birth or burial can be ascertained ; nor is there 
anything definitely known concerning the seat of his court, 
which has been variously located at Glastonbury, Winches- 
ter, Caerleon-upon-Usk, and on the river Camel (or Cam- 
Ian) in Cornwall. In later Arthurian literature Caerleon 
appears as the seat of Arthur's central court. Equally in- 
definite are the accounts of his coronation, and of the char- 
acter of his knights, notably of Sir Gawain. 

7 Note A. "Age of Romance," p. 236. 



18 The Healing of the Nations 

The Arthurian Cycle 

There doubtless must be some basis of solid fact under- 
lying such widespread and persistent traditions. Many 
there be who, like Caxton's friend, stoutly maintain that 
"in him who should say or think that there was never such 
a king called Arthur, might well be aretted great folly and 
blindness." Arthur, as we first know him, was a Welsh or 
British hero of the sixth century who fought against the 
Saxons, and who, by Malory's time (1470) has gradually 
developed into the ideal Christian king of England. 

The oldest historical document (and probably the most 
reliable) in which Arthur is mentioned by name is the 
Historia Britonwm ascribed to Nennius (about the year 
800). Here we are told that Arthur fought, together with 
the kings of the Britons, and was a leader in the battles 
against the Saxons. William of Malmesbury (1125), a fairly 
trustworthy historian, refers to "the warlike Arthur, a man 
worthy to be celebrated not in the foolish dreams of deceitful 
fables, but in truthful histories. For he long sustained the 
declining fortunes of his native land, and roused the un- 
crushed spirit of the people to war." By the beginning of 
the twelfth century Arthurian stories were circulating freely 
in Brittany, Cornwall, and Wales. As Miss Jessie L. Wes- 
ton says, "Arthurian tradition was preserved in Wales 
through the medium of the bards, was by them communi- 
cated to their Norman conquerors, worked up into poems 
by the Anglo-Normans, and by them transmitted to the 
continental poets," who in turn translated them into English. 

Geoffrey's Chronicle 

It was Geoffrey of Monmouth (a Benedictine monk, who 
was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph in 1152) who, in his 
Historia Regum Britannia (1148), did most to give Arthur 
a place of great renown as an authentic historical character, 
a great "king of Britain." Whatever Geoffrey's sources of 
information were, his very interesting book bears clear evi- 
dence of deliberate romantic embellishment and expansion. 

According to Geoffrey, Arthur was the son of Uther 



The Healing of the Nations 19 

Pendragon (supposed by some to have been a title given 
to an elective sovereign over the many kings of Britain). 
Uther falls in love with Igerne, wife of Gorlois, duke of 
Cornwall. Transformed by Merlin's magic powers into the 
semblance of Gorlois, Uther proceeds to the castle of 
Tintagel, on the Cornish sea-coast, in search of Igerne (or 
Igraine), where, in the absence of Gorlois, he gains ready 
admission, with the result that in due course Arthur was 
born. Soon afterward Gorlois dies, and after a while Uther 
marries Igerne, and so becomes the father of a daughter, 
who became the wife of King Lot of Lothian and of Orkney 
and the mother of Gawain and Modred. When Arthur was* 
a youth of fifteen years, his father died, and he was crowned 
by Dubricius (Dyfrig), "archbishop of the City of Le- 
gions" — Caerleon (which, by the by, never was an arch- 
bishopric). Following some deeds of prowess which con- 
tributed to the unifying and strengthening of his kingdom, 
he married Guinevere, "who surpassed in beauty all the 
other dames of the island." Then came further conquests 
in the north, followed by twelve years of peace, during which 
the kingdom enjoyed great prosperity and his court waxed 
in splendor. Then "was his heart uplifted, and he set his 
desire upon subduing the whole of Europe unto himself." 
Norway and Gaul were speedily subjected. Before proceed- 
ing further, he returned to Caerleon for his second and 
imperial coronation, to which were bidden kings and princes 
and warriors from every province of the British islands and 
from other parts. From the "high solemnity" of the coro- 
nation he set forth with a mighty army against the Romans, 
who had demanded tribute, and passed once more into Gaul. 
There he defeated a much larger army of the Romans than 
his own, and had already started to cross the Alps and to 
march upon Rome when he received intelligence of the revolt 
of his nephew Modred, "unto whom he had committed the 
charge of Britain, but who had tyrannously and traitorously 
set the crown of the kingdom upon his own head, and had 
linked him in unhallowed union with Guenever the Queen in 
spite of her former marriage." Returning immediately, he 
engaged in several battles with Modred, and in the final 
engagement on the river Camel (Camlan), in Cornwall, he 



20 The Healing of the Nations 

slew Modred, but having himself received from Modred 
mortal wounds he was "borne thence unto the island of 
Avalon for the healing of his wounds, in the year of the 
incarnation of our Lord five hundred and forty-two." 

Geoffrey's history professes to be derived from a "British 
book," an ancient Welsh chronicle, which was brought from 
Brittany by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, and which 
Geoffrey translated into Latin. This may or may not have 
been a literary ruse, as no trace of such a book has ever 
been discovered. Geoffrey borrowed largely from the Latin 
Nennius and from other chronicles and from folk-lore. His 
work was translated into French verse and, colored and 
graced by the art of the French translators, found its way 
back again into English verse in Layamon's Brut; and thus 
the earliest romances and songs of Wales influenced English 
literature in a roundabout way through the French. These 
old tales are wholly given to feats of adventure, recounting 
merely deeds of animal courage and passion. 

The popularity of Geoffrey's History was immediate and 
immense, although there were not a few keen critics who 
regarded it as fiction under the guise of a chronicle. His 
narrative received many additional details and embellish- 
ments by Wace (1155), a Norman poet who translated 
Geoffrey's History into French verse. Wace was the first 
Arthurian writer to mention the Round Table, which he says 
was designed to prevent any claim to precedence among 
Arthur's knights. The priest Layamon soon after produced 
a spirited and amplified imitation of Wace's metrical chron- 
icle, introducing a largely supernatural element. 

Walter Map 

It was the courtier Walter Map who, with the insight of 
true genius, was the first to combine the Legend of the 
Round Table with the Quest of the Holy Grail in one 
romance (about 1175), thus giving spiritual life to the old 
tales of chivalry and adventure. "The Quest" and the 
"Early History of the Holy Grail" were talismanic legends 
and had originally nothing to do with Arthur. It is inter- 
esting to note that Map's great prose romance of Lancelot, 



The Healing of the Nations 21 

which included a version of the Grail story, was most likely 
the book in which Paolo and Francesca read one fateful 
day. 8 The Queste, which was largely Map's invention, is 
descriptive of a good man's endeavor after a knowledge of 
truth and of God, to be gained only through a life of purity. 
Chivalry was made compatible with celibacy, and knight- 
errantry divorced from sexual love. 

Malory 

Sir Thomas Malory, knight, "a servant of Jesu both 
day and night," finished his Morte Darthur in 1470. Cax- 
ton, the first English printer, brought out the first edition 
of it "with all care," in 1485. In it we have a compilation 
and artistic combination of all the richest treasures of 
medieval romance, presented with a most subtle charm of 
literary expression and scintillating with quaint similes and 
witty reflections. If the style be often inartificial, that is 
clearly owing to the difficulty of subduing the huge masses 
of the materials into a perfect whole. It is largely a trans- 
lation and a collection from foreign sources, a garnering 
and sifting of a multifarious mass of manuscript material 
fused and fashioned into a continuous story by his own 
"epic genius." 

Medieval Morality 

The morality of the book has been called in question, 
notably by Roger Ascham in his Schoolmaster, where he 
protests that "the whole pleasure of the book standeth in 
open manslaughter and bold bowdry." In the days of 
Edward IV, however, morality was at a very low ebb and the 
social and political life of the country all in confusion. In 
Malory's book there are clear evidences of a new spirit at 
work which soon expressed itself powerfully through the 
Reformation. It was a time of transition and progress. The 
"open manslaughter" was mostly in the interest of law and 
good government, and guilty love in his pages always brings 
ruin and remorse, while purity brings peace. The moral law 
is, at least by implication, upheld throughout. Ascham 
greatly exaggerates the evil elements and overlooks the 

8 Dante, Inferno, V, 123-135. 



22 The Healing of the Nations 

brighter features, the many examples of knightly gentleness 
no less than courage, of self-sacrifice as well as hardihood. 
Malory errs in making celibacy, not marriage, the ideal of 
moral purity and human relation, and he condones certain 
evils in a way that would be impossible today. He is, how- 
ever, an exponent of his age rather than a reformer. Malory 
himself was a devout Christian, but we should hardly expect 
in his writings the Christian refinement of a later age. While 
Ascham and his followers betray a certain bias in their 
strictures, Caxton's estimate of the work bespeaks a more 
judicial mind. "For herein may be seen noble chivalry, 
courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, 
cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the good 
and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and 
renown . . . and after this short and transitory life 
unto everlasting bliss in heaven; the which He grant us 
that reigneth in heaven, the blessed Trinity. Amen." 

In thus "reducing" from French sources and transmut- 
ing by his art the legends which he yet faithfully preserves, 
Malory gave new life to the Arthurian story, and from its 
first appearance his unique and masterly work has enthralled 
the popular heart and made a powerful appeal to many mod- 
ern English poets. Spenser, in his Faerie Queene, makes 
"Prince Arthure" the type of "magnificence," that is of 
"noble deeds," and Arthur's knights represent the various 
virtues striving heavenwards. Drayton, Dryden, Scott, and 
later poets, artists, and musicians (notably Wagner), have 
drawn largely upon it. Milton originally intended to make 
Arthur the hero of his great epic, but doubting "who he 
was and whether any such reigned in history," rejected the 
Round Table as a subject in favor of the loss of Paradise. 
A somewhat remarkable decision that, seeing that Milton's 
Paradise Lost is just as much the work of imagination as 
the legend of the Round Table, nor is the Holy Grail any 
more of a fiction than the Tree of Life in Eden or his own 
Samson Agonist es. 

Tennyson 

Lord Tennyson follows Malory's Morte Darthur in its 
main narrative and in its ethical import, while he smoothes 



The Healing of the Nations 23 

away its incoherences and its confusions and gives a refining 
touch to some of its ruggedness. Under his skilful hands 
the old legends are invested with a new beauty and signifi- 
cance, which from the modern Christian point of view is a 
decided gain, although one "must in a manner and for the 
time forget the old before he can read the Idylls of the King 
without a somewhat sad feeling that these are not the old 
knights whom he has always known." 9 

The Arthurian story thus grew in beauty and interest 
with every new writer. At first it was a tale of battles ; then 
woman and chivalry came in to soften it, — scenes of love 
being introduced to please and entertain the courtly ladies ; 
and lastly were embodied the spiritual elements associated 
with the Holy Grail. 

With all the bewildering mass of material at hand, it 
would seem an impossible task to disengage the authentic 
from the romantic Arthur. Wace pertinently says, "Nor 
all a lie, nor all true, nor all fable, nor all known, so much 
have the story-tellers fabled, in order to embellish their 
tales, that they have made all seem fable." Gibbon com- 
plains that the true history of Arthur, "the hereditary 
prince of the Silures, in South Wales, and the elective king 
or general of the nation," has been obscured by monkish 
fictions. "It is impossible to allow the reality of the Round 
Table." With the coming of the light of science and reason, 
"the whole visional fabric melted into air ; and by a natural 
though unjust reverse of the public opinion, the severity of 
the present age is inclined to question the existence of 
Arthur." 10 

Nennius 

The evidence of Nennius (400 years before Geoffrey) is 
in the main to be relied on. He tells us that Arthur was 
dux bellorum, and led the armies of the British kings against 
the Saxon invaders, whom he defeated in twelve great 
battles. 

That he was not a king but the highest British official, a 

9 Sir Edward Strachey, Le Morte Darthur, Intro, p. xxvi. 

10 Gibbon, Roman Empire, Ch. xxxviii. 



24 The Healing of the Nations 

commander-in-chief, who held a roving commission to defend 
the island whenever attacked ; that he successfully fought 
the Saxons, was betrayed by his wife and nephew, and fell 
in battle: there we probably have the original elements of 
the Arthurian legend. Other elements soon crept in, and 
he is made a hero of prehistoric myth, a Brythonic divinity. 11 

King Arthur 

Excalibur. Malory, drawing largely no doubt upon his 
own imagination, tells us how Arthur came to the throne. 
Arthur knew not the story of his birth. When he was born 
his father, Uther Pendragon, had given him to Merlin the 
Wizard, who carried the child to a good knight, Sir Hector, 
to nurse and bring up, because he knew the trouble that 
was coming, for upon the death of the king the nobles fell 
to fighting each other and brought the whole kingdom to 
waste and ruin. Each thought himself fitted to be king and, 
strengthening his own castle, made war on his neighbors. 

When Uther died and Arthur was now come to manhood, 
Merlin went to the archbishop of Canterbury, who, following 
the Wizard's instructions, called to London at Christmas- 
tide all the barons and knights of that realm, "all the lords 
and gentlemen of arms," that they might pray for peace 
and deliverance from ruin, seeing that the kingdom was 
now so much divided. When Uther died none knew save 
Merlin that he had an heir living; and the nobles were in 
perplexity as to whom to make king, as there were many 
claimants to the crown. But that was the age of miracles. 
When they came forth from high mass at the Abbey (or 
was it St. Paul's?) on Christmas morning they beheld an 
anvil set on a stone, and, stuck in the anvil, a sword great 
and strong. On the stone was written: "Whoso can draw 
forth this sword is rightful King of Britain born." One 
by one the barons tried to wrench out the sword, but try as 
they might, each man failed. They met again on Easter 
Day to try the same experiment, and with the same result. 
None of them could move the sword one inch, and they all 
drew back ashamed. Then Arthur climbed upon the stone 

11 Sir John Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 8. 



The Healing of the Nations 25 

and lifted the sword easily from its cleft, whereupon they 
all acclaimed Arthur King of Britain, and the archbishop 
set the crown of the realm upon his fair young head. 

That sword figures largely in later adventures and, in 
Arthur's hand, proves a most terrible and deadly weapon. 
"They fled from him like sheep from a fierce lion. 
Nought might armor avail them but that Caliburn would 
carve their souls from out them with their blood." 

Gumevere. Scarcely had Arthur ascended the throne when 
a number of kings, who knew not of his royal birth and re- 
fused to acknowledge his rightful sovereignty, joined their 
forces and came up against him in battle. Two good kings of 
Gaul, Ban and Bors, came to Arthur's aid, and together they 
overthrew the enemies. Then in turn Arthur had to render 
similar service to these two kings of Gaul, and was gone a 
great while. Upon his return he found his kingdom devas- 
tated by war; great tracts of forests had grown up, wild 
beasts had multiplied alarmingly and so had the population 
diminished ; the fields had been left untilled and the gardens 
were overgrown with weeds. The people had become demor- 
alized. Bands of robbers infested the woods. There was 
nought but swearing and breaking faith, and killing and 
stealing; no respect for women, no regard for children, "no 
truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land." 

Arthur set himself resolutely to change all this, and to 
inaugurate a reign of justice and good will. The king's 
reform measures soon began to tell for good. A favorable 
beginning had been made, and the land began to smile again. 
Arthur fell in love with Guinevere, the beautiful and only 
daughter of Leodogran, king of Cameliard, the "fairest of 
all flesh on earth," and spite of Merlin's warning they were 
married at Canterbury ("at Camelot," Malory says), where, 
for the good of the country and for the strengthening of 
his throne, Arthur instituted the new order known as the 
Knights of the Round Table. Chief among these was the 
most valiant, meekest, and gentlest knight, Sir Lancelot of 
the Lake, who had escorted Guinevere from her home to be 
married to the king. 

Had the king heeded Merlin's protest, it would have been 
well both for him and his kingdom. Merlin never took his 



26 The Healing of the Nations 

sad eyes off Guinevere at the wedding ceremony and the 
investiture of the knights, for already he could see that 
Guinevere and Sir Lancelot had "changed eyes." The poison 
and the canker and the worm had begun their deadly work. 



CHAPTER n 



THE ROUND TABLE 



Arthur s Cabinet and Constabulary. It is pretty safe 
to conclude that there was an Arthur, Artor, or Arturus, 
— a sixth century war-leader of the tribes inhabiting the 
old divisions of Britain known as Cumbria and Strath- 
clyde against the encroaching Saxons from the east and 
the Picts and Scots from the north. The various tradi- 
tions about him that grew around this nucleus of fact, 
his strength and skill, his many victories, the knighthood 
that he formed, the virtues he inculcated, his grievous trials, 
and the heroism with which he withstood adversity, mark 
the ideal king of romance. In Malory's account he is not 
immaculate, Modred being alike his son and nephew by his 
half-sister. He errs and sins and suffers ; but all the tradi- 
tions set him high above his fellows in all that makes a man, 
a real prince, a military hero, a man of initiative, born to 
rule. His fabled reign was chiefly remarkable for the insti- 
tution of the Order of the Table Round, of which Wace made 
the first mention, and which was honored with the number of 
one hundred and fifty knights, of whose deeds of prowess 
and gallantry many strange and impossible things are told. 
The order consisted almost wholly of tributary kings and 
princes, who swore allegiance to Arthur as Pendragon, and 
who were the executors of his will in matters pertaining to 
the welfare of the country. The order is said to have taken 
its name from a large round table at which the king and 
his knights sat for meals. One of the seats was called the 
Siege Perilous, because it would have swallowed up any 
unchaste person who happened to sit in it. It stood vacant 
until Sir Galahad, the pure, whose name was written on it 
in golden letters, came and sat in it with safety. 

27 



28 The Healing of the Nations 

The duty which Arthur imposed upon his knights was 
the maintenance of peace at home and the guarding of the 
borders from invasion. The Knight's Triad, or triple moral 
motto, was this, — "Fidelity in friendship, sincerity in prom- 
ise, and to honor and protect women and the weak." To be 
true to one's friend, true to one's word, true to one's sister, 
— these were the first elements of Arthurian morality, and 
to this every knight pledged himself. 

A Christian Ruler 

Still another and even a more distinctive element was added 
to the moral code of the noble order. At that time, Chris- 
tianity had lost its hold upon the princes and people of 
Britain. Arthur revived it, put Christianity under arms, 
and knit his knights together in a bond of Christian fellow- 
ship. Arthur was first of all and above all a Christian, and 
he meant that every knight of his should be literally a Chris- 
tian in complete armor. Caxton calls him "first and chief 
of the three best Christian kings," the others being Charle- 
magne and Godfrey of Bouillon. Nennius tells of the battle 
"at the castle of Guinnion, when Arthur bore the image of 
the holy Virgin Mary on his shoulders ('The Virgin sculp- 
tured on his Christian shield' 12 ), and when the pagans were 
put to flight and a great slaughter made of them through 
the might of our Lord Jesus Christ and of Holy Mary his 
mother." After the battle of Badon Hill (c. 510), Arthur 
returned southwards, kept his Christmas at York, and em- 
ployed himself in, destroying the pagan temples of the 
Saxons and restoring the Christian churches. 

Said the king, describing the method of initiation into the 
Order of the Round Table: 

"I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King, as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
To honor his own word as if his God's, 

12 Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, I, x. 



The Healing of the Nations 29 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 
And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
Until they won her." 13 

Thus did King Arthur put Christianity under arms and 
send forth valiant knights to right the wrong and help the 
oppressed, to show mercy to all who asked it, and for no 
worldly gain to fight in a wrongful cause. Never was there 
so ideal a court or so noble a knighthood as the Court of 
King Arthur and the Order of the Table Round, thanks to 
the visionary romancers and poets in a dark and troubled 
period. 

From the court and camp of David, king of Israel, to 
those of King Arthur is a great chapter in the history of 
the progress of the human spirit, and incidentally of Divine 
revelation. To the heroic virtues of the ancient world, 
wisdom, fortitude and justice, were now added the amiable 
virtues of meekness, forbearance and forgiveness, and the 
theological virtues, faith, hope and love, the gentler virtues 
proving themselves no less strong and efficient than the 
sterner virtues in establishing good government and in pro- 
moting the general well-being of the kingdom. None of 
these are negative or quiescent qualities. "In Christian 
ethics all apathy, passivity and inaction, which occupy an 
important place in the moral systems of Buddhism, Stoicism, 
and even medieval Catholicism, play no part. On the con- 
trary all is life, energy and unceasing endeavor, and they 
contained the germs of the subsequent renewal of Europe, 
and still contain the potency of social and political trans- 
formation.' 5 14 

Arthur's code of morals, as of all other men, was deter- 
mined by his religious convictions. The ideal Arthur was a 
Christian, and his laws were derived from his knowledge of 
Christ and his personal relation to Him. Religion offers 
the only safe and stedfast sanctions to morality. All true 
ethics takes its rise in the soul's consciousness of God. 

u Tennyson, Idylls of the King, "Guinevere." 

14 The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, II, 1025. 



30 The Healing of the Nations 

" 'The King will follow Christ, and we the King 
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign/ 
So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall." 15 

Religion and Morality 

A non-religious person is a non-moral person irrespective 
of what his life may be. "You cannot put a negative into 
the creeds without taking a negative out of the command- 
ments." Laplace, in his later years, acknowledged his con- 
viction that no society can be maintained in honor and hap- 
piness without the help of the religious consciousness. And 
on witnessing the hurtful effects of infidelity upon society, 
Voltaire exclaimed, "If there be no God, we must invent 
one." Negation supplies no bond. The only universal 
moral authority by which society can be established is the 
religious consciousness, deep in the heart of every man. 
"The eternal God is thy dwelling-place, and underneath are 
the everlasting arms." Its negations render Agnosticism 
worthless ; and by the same token the efforts of the Positivist 
to deify humanity and to supplant religion by a gospel of 
social service are of no avail. Man's heart and flesh cry 
out unto the living God. 

Positivism 

If I may digress a little here, it is that I may remind the reader 
of some of the substitutes which have been suggested for spiritual 
religion, that is, for religion as the worship of God. The 
Comtist school was split on the question of the need of such 
a religion. Comte sought to expound and reconcile a philosophy 
that was the basis and a polity that was the end of a social gov- 
ernment, an ordered rule of organized life, whereby our intellec- 
tual faculties and our social sympathies are brought into close 
correlation with each other. This philosophy and this polity he 
sought to unify in a system of thought and life under the con- 
ception of a religion, the Religion of Humanity, the worship of 
all that is best in humanity as a whole. Of such an object of 
worship it may well be said, "a craftsman made it, and it is no 
God." 16 The attempt to elevate humanitarianism to the dignity 

15 The Coming of Arthur. 
la Hosea 8 6. 



The Healing of the Nations 31 

of a religion, and to set forth the humanitarian god as the God 
of humanity, is plainly a subterfuge and an apology for the 
instinct of worship. To Littre, and other disciples of Comte, 
this religion of humanity was an excrescence which bore no 
relation to the original positive philosophy, and indeed contra- 
dicted it. 

Comte insisted that, to the Positivist, "life becomes a continu- 
ous act of worship, performed under the inspiration of universal 
Love. All our thoughts, feelings and actions flow spontaneously 
towards a common centre in Humanity, one Supreme Being — a 
Being so real, accessible and sympathetic, because she is of the 
same nature as her worshippers/' But where is the source of 
this "universal Love" to be found? Religion finds it in the 
recognition of our dependence on a Being who is at once the 
source and embodiment of all that is worshipful, the sustaining 
fountain of every good that we enjoy. Man's nature as an 
ethical being is not derived from the non-moral external world 
from which he springs. "We are God's offspring." 17 

It is this consciousness alone that has power to make of all 
humanity one great organism, with a common interest and a 
common purpose. The worship of a finite object (even of 
Humanity itself) as a substitute for religion, the worship of 
an infinite God, is beset with insuperable difficulties for both 
mind and heart, and resolves itself ultimately into self-worship 
and self-love. It is only the Religion of the Infinite that can 
furnish the nexus for the binding together in one of all human 
groups. Humanity as a finite object developing in time can 
never take the place of God. 

It is true that Christianity, while emphasizing man's self- 
incompleteness and insufficiency, has set a supreme value on man, 
on every man, and revealed the native dignity and potential glory 
of human nature. As Sir John Seeley says, "The worship of 
Humanity belongs to the very essence of Christianity itself, 
and only becomes heretical in the modern system by being sepa- 
rated from the worship of Deity." 18 

We may be told that a man without any religious convictions 
or pretensions may have a keen sense of right and wrong, a 
strong love for justice and goodness, and that that is his religion. 
Why should not that be sufficient? and why should it not be 
"reckoned unto him for righteousness" ? To which the answer is 
simple. It is easy for people who are living on the capital which 

17 See page 81. 

18 Natural Religion, p. 75 (second edition). 



32 The Healing of the Nations 

Christianity has earned to say that they can do without religion, 
and it may seem to go well with them for a generation or two. 
Their morality, separated from religion, is like the fabled flower 
which Eve plucked when passing out of Paradise, very beautiful 
and fragrant while it lasted; but severed from its parent stem 
it soon withered and died. No, there is no reliable guaranty of 
morality save in the inherently religious nature of man. 

Browning on Shelley 

But without pursuing the argument further, let me cite here 
the interesting case of Shelley, which Browning makes the chief 
subject of his essay on his great compeer: 

"I shall say what I think — had Shelley lived he would have 
finally ranged himself with the Christians; his very instinct for 
helping the weaker side, his very 'hate of hate/ would have grown 
clear-sighted by exercise. . . . Already he had attained to a 
profession of 'a worship to the Spirit of good within which 
requires devoted and disinterested homage.' ... As I call 
Shelley a moral man, because he was true, simple-hearted, and 
brave, and because what he acted corresponded to what he knew, 
so I call him a man of religious mind, because every audacious 
negative cast up by him against the Divine was interpenetrated 
with a mood of reverence and adoration, — and because I find him 
everywhere taking for granted some of the capital dogmas of 
Christianity, while most vehemently denying their historical 
basement. ... In religion, one earnest and unextorted asser- 
tion of belief should outweigh, as a matter of testimony, many 
assertions of unbelief. The fact that there is a gold-region is 
established by finding one lump, though you miss the vein never 
so often." 

Shelley's morality, then, was a species of subconscious Chris- 
tianity, and his vagaries can be put down to the incipiency of his 
Christian convictions. 

But to go on with our story. King Arthur was a man 
of strong religious convictions, and through his radiant 
personality was able to impart his convictions to others. 

"When he spake and cheer'd Ins Table Round 
With large divine and comfortable words 
Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld 
From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash 
A momentary likeness of the King. 



The Healing of the Nations 33 

"And Arthur and his knighthood for a space 
Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King 
Drew in the petty princedoms under him, 
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame 
The heathen hordes, and made a realm, and reigned." 

There is no universal unifying principle, whether for 
defensive or aggressive purposes, except religion, — no all- 
inclusive society but the church of God. You may have 
your clubs and lodges and unions and combines and caucuses 
and ententes and alliances, devoted to sectional or partisan 
interests, but no world-wide organization, nor even Stead's 
ideal of "the union of all who love in the service of all who 
suffer," without religion. The new citizenship must be a 
Divine Commonwealth "coming down new out of heaven 
from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband," 
a civilization founded upon love, in which the snarl of the 
tiger will be no more heard beneath the euphemisms of subtle 
diplomacy, and in which "the war-drum throbs no longer, 
and the battle-flags are furPd." 

Christianity Under Arms 

Arthur put Christianity under arms for the protection 
and good government of his kingdom. Christianity had 
been under arms long before, and under arms it has remained 
ever since. During the first three centuries the Christian 
Church was a church of martyrdom, thriving miraculously 
under persecution. Since then she has been going forth 
to war, "with the cross of Jesus going on before," under 
such illustrious leaders as Constantine (in whose time she 
became allied with the State and Christianity obtained a 
complete victory over Greek heathenism), Martel ("the 
savior of Christendom"), Godfrey, Cromwell, Charles G. 
Gordon, and Marshal Foch. A solitary voice here and there 
has been raised in protest. That rare genius, Walter Map, 
a good Churchman and a still better Christian, was moved 
to write as follows concerning the Crusades : 

"They want nothing but Jerusalem; there they take in defense 
of Christianity the sword that was prohibited to Peter in defense 



34 The Healing of the Nations 

of Christ. Peter there learnt to seek peace with patience; I 
know not who has taught these to conquer peace by violence. 
They take the sword and perish by the sword. Yet they say 
that all laws and all rights permit force to be repelled by force. 
But he disapproved such law who, when Peter struck, would not 
command the legions of the angels. By the Word of the Lord, 
not at the point of the sword, the Apostles conquered Damascus, 
Alexandria, and a great part of the world that the sword has 
lost. And David, when he went out to Goliath, said 'Thou 
comest to me with arms, but I come to thee in the name of the 
Lord, that all this assembly may know that the Lord saveth not 
with sword and spear.' " 19 

The Doctrine of Non-Resistance 

In our day we have heard Tolstoy's voice raised against 
the use of arms or any resistance of evil by outward force, 
thus taking in their bare literalness the reported sayings 
of Jesus, "Resist not evil. To him that smiteth thee on 
the one cheek offer also the other. Love your enemies," 
and so on. Tolstoy condemned the soldier's sword, the 
policeman's club, the clenched fist, no matter in what cause 
they might be used. In one of his stories, he blames a man 
who shot a burglar in order to save his mother's life. Force 
is no remedy for wickedness. Punishment of all sorts is 
wrong. Penitentiaries are not productive of penitents. 
There is no hope for the world until Christ's moral author- 
ity and rule of life are fully recognized and made dominant, 
and these, as already stated, must be interpreted literally. 
It was, however, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. 

The Christian hope for the world rests on the gradual, 
normal development of forces already at work in the world, 
not on a sudden, cataclysmic breaking-up of the processes 
of history. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observa- 
tion," 20 "observation" (parateresis) here being an astro- 
nomical term denoting some manifestation in the physical 
heavens, some sudden portent of an immediate and over- 
whelming change in the course of Providence. Or to change 
the metaphor, the final triumph of Christian principles will 

19 Courtly Trifles, Dist. I. 

20 Luke 17 20. 



The Healing of the Nations 35 

not be achieved by dynamitic convulsions but by the dynam- 
ic, leavening, assimilative power of Christian agencies. 
The Christian world is not prepared to submit to the imme- 
diate triumph of evil forces (though it be but transient) on 
the chance of the ultimate triumph of Christian ideals. We 
are in no mood to let hell run loose all over creation. The 
literal application of the Sermon on the Mount to existing 
conditions would simply mean a diet of earthquakes, and 
would prove subversive of all government and of civilization 
itself. 

At the National Council of the Evangelical Free 
Churches of England and Wales, in 1900, Rev. Alexander 
Mackennal said, in words made eloquent by a holy passion: 

"The hardest lesson we have to learn is that a nation which 
would fulfil the perfect law of Christ may have to give its life for 
its testimony. For many years the thought has pressed upon me 
that, if England is to fulfil her noblest destiny, she may be called 
to be a sacrificial nation. And I have had the dream that the 
sacrifice might be in the cause of peace. If England, in the 
plenitude of her power, should lay down every weapon of a 
carnal warfare, disband her armies, call her fleets from the sea, 
throw open her ports, and trust for her continued existence only 
to the service she could render to the world, and the testimony 
she would bear to Christ, what would happen ? I know not ; and 
the doubt, the knowledge that any one who would speak of such 
a thing would not command a serious hearing, has made me a 
lonely man." 

Would England find her life in the losing of it, think you? 
In all her great history she has never yet shown herself to 
be particularly anxious to try the experiment, nor has any 
other nation seemed unduly covetous of such a distinction. 
Certain small sects, such as the Mennonites and the Society 
of Friends, have ever refused to bear arms or to assist in 
military affairs. 

The Jewish Paradox 

Since the days of Bar-Cochba the Jews have not as a 
nation engaged in war, although they, a people without a 
country and without a flag, have patriotically fought on all 
battlefields, brother against brother, for whatever country 



36 The Healing of the Nations 

it was that offered them hospitality. And herein is a strange 
thing; a people hated, distrusted, maligned, and most cruelly 
persecuted, ten million strong and enormously wealthy, that 
has never in two thousand years appealed to the arbitra- 
ment of the sword. Rabbi Joel Blau says that "the unfor- 
tunate relation between Jews and Christians simmers down 
to this: peoples that believe in non-resistance, but practise 
it not, hate a people that believes not in non-resistance, 
but practises it," strong in the belief, paradoxical as it 
may seem, that non-resistance is the strongest form of resist- 
ance. 21 "The Jew lives by the resistless force of his non- 
resistance. By some inner or outer fatality, the Jew was 
never beloved of mankind" ; but for two millenniums he has 
sought self-preservation by other means than by the force 
of arms. And to this day the preservation of "the dispersed 
of Israel" is one of the marvels of the Divine government 
of the world. The learned rabbi, as we shall see a little 
later, is laboring under a misapprehension as to the atti- 
tude of the Christian world generally toward the doctrine 
of non-resistance and the use of force against force, but 
that does not affect the general trend and bearing of his 
argument. 

The United States and the Great War 

Americans have been a non-aggressive, non-combative 
people; but America prides herself upon having, contrary 
to all her traditions, permitted herself, after all other means 
had proved unavailing, to be entangled in the toils of the 
Great War from purely religious, humanitarian, unselfish 
motives, "hoping for nothing again," when sixty thousand 
of her boys made the supreme sacrifice on European fields. 
A most glorious oblation that was on the altar of humanity. 
It was "the day of conscience high-enthroned," and of an 
international conscience at that, — the day of "an America 
shining in armor like Michael the archangel of God." No 
matter whether the Northcliffe Syndicate poured fifteen 
million dollars into the press of this country to promote the 
entrance of the United States into the great war against 

21 The Atlantic Monthly, January, 1922, art. "The Modern Pharisee." 



The Healing of the Nations 37 

the Central Powers. No matter whether twenty thousand 
millionaires were made in America through the war. The 
American people knew nothing of these things at the time. 
They were moved simply by a splendid enthusiasm of human- 
ity. They have never been a war-loving people, although 
they have never been "too proud to fight." Those who can 
only see physical valor, national pride, or servile obedience 
to a command in the self-sacrifice of her sons overseas miss 
the real significance, the moral grandeur of it all, and remind 
us of Butler's Ernest Pontifex, who went up the Great St. 
Bernard and "saw the dogs." These men who so willingly 
laid down their lives were impelled by a deep moral convic- 
tion ; they were sustained by a great moral purpose. They 
were rendered invincible by the thought that 

"The fittest place where man can die 
Is where he dies for man." 

No matter about the slackers and laggards and extreme 
pacificists and anarchists, and the great host of them who 
"tarried by the stuff" and drew abnormal and unreasonable 
wages for little or no service. Such things are incidental 
to all war. I am speaking of the great mass of American 
people and of the true American spirit behind and in their 
unselfish crusade against an enemy who had made "a cove- 
nant with death and a bargain with hell." We did not 
create the situation. We found our task waiting for us 
and, with our valiant and worthy allies, went through with 
it in obedience to a divine compulsion. The strength of 
the American army was not in her numbers or armament 
or any outward thing; it was within herself, the strength 
of a great spiritual purpose. The United States is a spiri- 
tual reality, built upon spiritual ideals ; and to be true to 
herself she must be true to these ideals and keep faith with 
the dead who perished for them. 

The American Spirit 

America is a peace-loving, money-making, house-keeping 
nation, friendly to all the world. True, there is blood on 
her breast, because she has on occasion fought for her life, 



38 The Healing of the Nations 

fought for her young, and gone forth, as in the Spanish- 
American war, to deliver the oppressed when he cried. She 
has never yet suffered a protege nation to be crushed under 
the tyrant's heel while she looked on, weakly and beseech- 
ingly wringing her hands. The Monroe Doctrine was formu- 
lated for the protection of our neighbors of the South 
American republics against the aggression and oppressive 
dealings of foreign powers. It is our policy that the strong 
must shelter and protect, and not exploit, the weak. And 
what we want, what the world needs, is a Monroe Doctrine 
not alone for the Western hemisphere but for the whole wide 
world. It is the kind of policy that accepted our share of 
the Boxer indemnity which the injured nations required of 
China, and then gave it back to her for the education of her 
children, — a treatment which has secured to us the perma- 
nent good-will of that nation. That is the spirit of 
America. 

The natural misfortunes, the follies and disasters of other 
nations have called forth on America's part the same pity 
and purely moral considerations that she has felt and shown 
for her own people. She has generously poured of her treas- 
ure and substance for the relief and comfort of the afflicted, 
irrespective of race, status, country, creed, or color. Bel- 
gians, Armenians, devastated France, famine sufferers in 
China, destitute Germans, the children of Central Europe, 
starving millions of Russia, have all alike partaken of her 
most liberal benefactions. Never has she turned a deaf ear 
to news of far-away trouble and sorrow when it was within 
her power to help. When in these last days the world 
seemed wholly divided between force and fear, and every- 
thing human seemed to be going down, she took her stand 
and threw her whole weight on the side of faith and human- 
ity and righteousness. 

The Limit of Tolerance 

The United States of America is the most pacific power 
on earth; but even St. Paul recognized the dangers and 
limits of a too-supine pacifism when he said, "If it be possi- 
ble, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men." 



The Healing of the Nations 39 

America exercised all the moral persuasion in her power 
to bring the aggressor to reason; but the limit of tolerance 
was at last reached, and there was no alternative left us but 
to oppose physical strength to physical strength. We 
showed no undue haste to enter the lists ; the cup of the 
enemy's iniquity was now full to the brim. 

When cathedrals were bombarded, observatories shelled, 
and bombs dropped on kindergartens and hospitals, all sense 
of security disappeared on the one part as all sense of real 
values had disappeared on the other part, and we realized 
that there was nothing but brute force between us and 
destruction. The best things that had to do with the future 
of the world had to be saved by force, if at all, inasmuch 
as the enemy's policy had left nothing unassailable. The 
religion that forbids a State to fight for the moral life of 
humanity may well be termed "an outlaw religion" and takes 
its place with anarchism. Physical force, supplementary 
to moral force, is a necessary factor in the evolution of 
society. The individual criminal, the aggressive nation, 
must be resisted by the material force necessary to sweep 
away their obstruction to the moral progress of the world. 
No nation can remain civilized until all mankind is civilized. 
When Jesus said, "Resist not evil," he was addressing those 
who were soon to face bitter and long-continued persecution, 
"as sheep in the midst of wolves," when resistance would be 
useless. He therefore counseled them to be "wise as ser- 
pents and simple as doves," and by patient endurance of 
inescapable ills and by pure lives of innocency to manifest 
the power of the faith by which at last they conquered their 
conquerors. Tolstoy and other non-resistants have fallen 
into the mistake of regarding the counsel given to the 
martyr Church as addressed to all in other circumstances 
and as annulling the duty of the strong to protect the weak 
in the relation of the parent to the child, of the husband 
to the wife, of the well-guarded to the ill-guarded members 
of the community. Love then ceases to be righteous love 
and has degenerated into a vapid sentiment without prin- 
ciple. There are certain human values which have to be 
preserved at all costs. 

The War of 1914-18 has made very clear to us that 



40 The Healing of the Nations 

another conflict, in which the same countries should be in- 
volved, with all our modern inventions, would more than 
decimate the earth's population and reduce the world to 
hopeless chaos. How, then, may it be averted? What hope 
is there of a warless world, a reign of universal peace? To 
that I would say that to believe in a warless world is the 
first step toward its realization; then to pray for it, work 
for it, and if necessary fight for it. 

A Warless World 

The World War has really proved a mighty agent in the 
promotion of world-peace. It brought nearly all the nations 
of the earth together as never before. True, they came 
together to fight one another. They became acquainted. 
Out of all the millions of the earth's population, only 133,- 
000,000 failed actively to get into the war. The nations 
raged. The peoples muttered ominously. The kings of the 
earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together. 
For the first time in history we have seen a world move- 
ment, effected at the cost of a terrible and elemental world 
convulsion, as a result of which there has come a stern 
realization of the absolute and crying necessity of again 
coming together in a different spirit, for conversation, for 
mutual counsel, and for cooperation in the interests of the 
peace and progress of the world. The tendency to division 
in the branches of the same stock has received a decided 
check by the war. They have realized the need of keeping 
together in one federation for their own protection. That 
is one great gain. People get to know each other better by 
working together than by fighting. Extend the principle, 
and you will have made a great advance toward a harmoni- 
ous and workable society of nations. 

The Hague Conference 

In the last half-century several movements have been 
developed for the promotion of international peace con- 
gresses. The first formal peace congress of accredited rep- 
resentatives was held at The Hague in 1899, as the result of 



The Healing of the Nations 41 

which an International Court of Arbitration was created, 
to which twenty-seven powers became parties, namely twen- 
ty-one European states, the United States of America, 
Mexico, Japan, China, Persia, and Siam. Its chief function 
has been to define the legitimate usages of land and naval 
warfare. The second Hague Conference was held in 1907 
and attended by representatives from forty-four states, when 
an International Prize Court was established. A draft con- 
vention relative to the creation of a Judicial Arbitration 
Court was also drawn up. Arbitration by diplomats tends 
to become a balancing of contending claims, a diplomatic 
compromise. Judicial award means the development of 
international law and the determination of differences by 
the law of international justice. The third Hague Con- 
ference planned for 1915 came to naught, owing to the war. 
Incidentally, it might be mentioned that one of the objects 
of the world fairs has been the development of international 
understanding, fellowship, and good will. 22 

The League of Nations 

A League of Nations, which found its chief advocate in 
President Wilson, came into being in January, 1920, for 
those nations which ratified the Treaty of Versailles, and 
has already rendered signal service. Its second assembly 
was held in 1921, and was made up of representatives of 
forty-eight different countries. It has held a financial con- 
ference of thirty-nine states to consider the economic situa- 
tion of the world, and made recommendations for restoring 
credit. It has established a Court of International Justice 
and elected an American (John Bassett Moore) as one of its 
judges, while a number of Americans have been assigned 
important tasks in the Secretariat of the League, which has 
its permanent offices in Geneva. It has sought to give ex- 
pression to the necessary unity of the world and to foster 
the idea of the good of the world as attainable only through 
mutual understanding and joint responsibility. It has so 
far failed of universal usefulness mainly through the absten- 
tion of the United States for reasons which are now the 
23 Note B. "World Fairs," p. 236. 



42 The Healing of the Nations 

property of the world. It was the first American initiative 
toward world peace; but it failed to retain the official sup- 
port of the American Government, one of the chief objec- 
tions being that she might be outvoted by quite minor powers 
and become entangled again in some "blood-stained net" or 
in foreign responsibilities for which she had no taste. 

The Genoa Economic Conference 

As to whether the League of Nations, in some modified 
form (as suggested at its second meeting), or some other 
organization is destined to be the general and permanent 
organ through which future wars are to be prevented, it 
were idle at present to prophesy. The kaleidoscope is apt 
to shift at any moment. As I write these words an economic 
reconstruction conference of European nations is now being 
held (May, 1922) at Genoa for the discussion of plans 
which it is hoped will culminate in a general policy sub- 
scribed to by all the nations of Europe, — in other words, 
a European League of Nations, with Germany, Russia, and 
the rest of them in. A nine months' Peace Pact has been 
signed and the Conference adjourned to meet again at The 
Hague. 23 It has become abundantly clear that Europe is 
only to be saved by the honest and unreserved cooperation 
of its united states for mutual aid and reassurance. But 
that the League of Nations, as an experiment toward a new 
world order, is destined for searching reconsideration at 
no distant date there can be no doubt. 

The Washington Conference on Disarmament 

The International Conference on the Limitation of 
Armaments, called by President Harding, held its opening 
session at Washington on November 12, 1921, with accred- 
ited delegates present from the United States, the British 
Empire, France, Italy, China, Japan, Belgium, the Nether- 
lands, and Portugal, nine powers, commanding the seven 
seas. 

America has thus for the second time taken the lead in 

23 See further on p. 71. 



The Healing of the Nations 43 

one of the great liberal movements of mankind, the move- 
ment toward universal peace and security, and has startled 
the nations by her unselfish willirjgness to set the first exam- 
ple toward this end by an immediate and sweeping reduction 
of her navy. She had dedicated herself in the last war to 
the end that war pass forever as the arbitrament of national 
disputes. For this she never received and never expected 
one foot of new territory nor one dollar of indemnity. As a 
further evidence of her good will and pacific purposes it 
may be mentioned that at the close of the World War she 
had above four million officers and men under arms, whereas 
now this nation of 110,000,000 people, possessing nearly 
one-half of the wealth of the world, the greatest construc- 
tive and productive organization ever brought together in 
history, has a matter only of 185,000 enlisted men in the 
regular army, and a purely theoretical strength of 280,000 
men in the national guard. The old, and for the time being, 
necessary policy of aloofness and unconcern has been 
finally abandoned. America has awakened to the fact and 
responsibility of her world leadership. 

It is too early to attempt an appraisement of the full 
import of the Washington Conference. That is a task for 
the historian of the next generation; but it is safe to say 
that it marks one of the most important steps ever taken 
toward the gradual elimination of war. For a first experi- 
ment, the League of Nations may have had too definite and 
rigid a constitution, too wide and vague a scope. In all 
these respects it is, of course, amenable to modification. 
The Washington Conference — a temporary and special 
assembly — has the present advantage of a looser constitu- 
tion and more definite and limited aims. It has chiefly 
confined its attention to the limitation of naval armament 
and the solving of Far Eastern and Pacific problems corol- 
lary to this. It has meant, however, something very much 
more than "a world conversation." It can easily widen 
its scope and extend its powers as occasion may serve and 
as its services to the world may command the allegiance 
of other countries. A periodic repetition of similar con- 
ferences, such as is contemplated, would presently organize 
itself gradually and naturally into an association of nations 



44 The Healing of the Nations 

such as no outside power would dare to challenge or ignore. 
And the peace control of the earth, growing in this natural 
fashion, would thus consist always and solely of the willing 
and well-affected nations of the world. This is not the 
work of one day. President Harding, knowing what all the 
world knows, that unless the great nations disarm and cut 
down their spending they must stagger to ruin under their 
enormous burdens, invited them through their representa- 
tives to meet in Washington to talk it over. It was a simple, 
common sense proposition, if the world was to be saved from 
physical, financial, and moral bankruptcy. The whole 
project is an experiment, and that is all. It has the sub- 
stantial basis of an admitted need. It has no guaranty 
of success save the popular desire; but that, instead of 
diminishing its importance, manifestly enhances it. We 
need not cherish extravagant expectations concerning the 
outcome of the Conference. It cannot succeed in accom- 
plishing all that is needed in straightening out the tangles 
of a selfish, blundering old world. And again, it cannot fail 
in bringing the world very much farther on its way toward 
the desired goal. 

President Harding's Ecumenical Address 

In his opening address at the Conference, President 
Harding said, in part: 

"Speaking as official sponsor for the invitation, I think I may 
say the call is not of the United States of America alone. It is 
rather the spoken word of a war-wearied world, struggling for 
restoration, hungering and thirsting for better relationship; of 
humanity crying for relief and craving assurances of lasting 
peace. 

"It is easy to understand this world-wide aspiration. . . . 
Here in the United States we are but freshly turned from the 
burial of an unknown American soldier, when a nation sorrowed 
while paying him tribute. Whether it was spoken or not, a hun- 
dred millions of our people were summarizing the inexcusable 
cause, the incalculable cost, the unspeakable sacrifices, and the 
unutterable sorrows, and there was the ever-impelling question: 
How can humanity justify or God forgive? Human hate 
demands no such toll; ambition and greed must be denied it. If 



The Healing of the Nations 45 

misunderstanding must take the blame, then let us banish it, 
and let understanding rule and make good will regnant every- 
where. All of us demand liberty and justice. There cannot be 
one without the other, and they must be held the unquestioned 
possession of all peoples. Inherent rights are of God, and the 
tragedies of the world originate in their attempted denial. . . . 

"Gentlemen of the Conference, the United States welcomes 
you with unselfish hands. We harbor no fears; we have no 
sordid ends to serve; we suspect no enemy; we contemplate or 
apprehend no conquest. Content with what we have, we seek 
nothing which is another's. We only wish to do with you that 
finer, nobler thing which no nation can do alone. We wish to 
sit with you at the table of international understanding and good 
will. In good conscience we are eager to meet you frankly, and 
invite and offer cooperation. The world demands a sober con- 
templation of the existing order and the realization that there 
can be no cure without sacrifice, not by one of us, but by all 
of us. 

"I can speak officially only for our United States. One hun- 
dred millions frankly want less of armament and none of war. 
Wholly free from guile, sure in our own minds that we harbor 
no unworthy designs, we accredit the world with the same good 
intent. So I welcome you, not alone in good will and high pur- 
pose, but with high faith/ ' 

There you have the clear, resonant keynote of the new 
diplomacy, which inaugurated a new era in the history of 
international relations. We trust you. You trust us. 
Arms down. Let reason rule, and let us plan and work 
together for our own and the world's good. 

Secretary Hughes, in accepting the permanent chairman- 
ship of the Conference, laid before the delegates certain 
definite proposals relating to naval armaments on behalf of 
the United States, and took occasion to echo and to empha- 
size the President's sentiment. 

The Conference Program 

"The question in relation to armaments which may be regarded 
as of primary importance at this time and with which we can 
deal most promptly and effectively is the limitation of naval 
armament. There are certain general considerations which may 
be deemed pertinent to this subject. 



46 The Healing of the Nations 

"The first is that the core of the difficulty is to be found in 
the competition in the naval programs, and that, in order appro- 
priately to limit naval armament, competition in its production 
must be abandoned. Competition will not be remedied by 
resolves with respect to the method of its continuance. One 
program inevitably leads to another, and, if competition con- 
tinues, its regulation is impracticable. There is only one ade- 
quate way out, and that is to end it now. 

"It is apparent that this cannot be accomplished without seri- 
ous sacrifices. . . . The effort to escape sacrifices is futile. 
We must face them or yield our purpose. 

"It is also clear that no one of the naval powers should be 
expected to make the sacrifices alone. The only hope of limita- 
tion of naval armament is by agreement among the nations con- 
cerned, and this agreement should be entirely fair and reasonable 
in the extent of the sacrifices required of each of the powers. 
. . . Preparation for future naval war must stop now. . . . 
With the acceptance of this plan, the burden of meeting the 
demands of competition in naval armament will be lifted. Enor- 
mous sums will be released to aid the progress of civilization. 
At the same time the proper demands of national defense will 
be adequately met, and the nations will have ample opportunity 
during the (proposed) naval holiday of ten years to consider 
their future course." 

It was like the sound of the two silver trumpets summon- 
ing Israel to march forward (Numbers 10 10). 

The Outcome of the Conference 

Among the positive and most notable accomplishments of 
the Conference may be mentioned the agreed limitation of 
capital ships on the part of the United States, Great Britain, 
and Japan; the peace-promoting provisions of the four- 
power treaty relating to the islands of the Pacific, to which 
the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan are 
parties ; the five-power naval treaty, including the powers 
above named and Italy in addition; the declaration against 
the use of submarines as commerce destroyers ; the prohibi- 
tion of the use of poisonous gases ; and a provisional set- 
tlement of the conflicting claims of China and Japan. 

The most important of all the decisions made at this Con- 
ference was that of the British Government in admitting 



The Healing of the Nations 47 

the principle of equality in naval power with the United 
States. In thus abandoning the position she has held since 
the days of Queen Elizabeth, Great Britain won enduring 
praise for herself and made an almost measureless contribu- 
tion to the future harmonizing of the world. This abandon- 
ment of her naval supremacy is one of the strongest possible 
guarantees that Great Britain and the United States are 
not going to make war upon one another in this century or 
the next, and a most effective contribution toward the cessa- 
tion of all naval warfare and the internationalization of the 
high seas. 

The spirit of Anglo-American cooperation, and the disso- 
lution of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, have aided not only 
in producing cordial understandings between America and 
the British Empire, but also in finding workable compromises 
for many of the disputes of the Pacific and the Far East. 
No one power need aspire any more to world dominion, or 
expect to be entrusted with the sole guardianship of the 
world's peace. The day of peace through imperial hege- 
mony is past. It is only by conference and confidence and 
mutual agreements that we can gradually advance toward 
the long-looked-for day of international good will and inter- 
national service. 

"Mental Disarmament" 

A happy change seems to have come over the spirit of 
the world's dream, and instead of persistently saying in our 
haste, "All men are liars," we now say with the new, and 
more correct and sensible version, "I have learned to trust, 
though in my haste I had thought, 'The whole of man is 
delusion'" (Psalm 116 10, 11). This spirit of mutual re- 
spect and trust seems to have been the prevailing spirit of 
the Conference, and it is this spirit alone that contains in it 
the promise and potentiality of peace. The dove of peace 
will not alight upon an armed camp. The spirit of peace 
cannot thrive in an atmosphere of suspicion, whereas confi- 
dence inspires confidence. 

On Christmas eve, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, 
and for a full century Britannia and Columbia have kept 



48 The Healing of the Nations 

the peace with each other. The longest boundary line in 
the world is that which stretches across the continent from 
the shores of Maine to the coast of Washington, unguarded 
by a single fort, cannon, warship, or soldier. It is also the 
safest frontier line on earth (although trouble might easily 
have occurred at any point and at any time), because it is 
guarded alone by mutual respect and confidence and inter- 
national good will. English fields and gardens, with hedges 
and fences, may look more picturesque but are no safer 
from marauders than American gardens and orchards, 
where we have no such feudal relics. Broken glass and 
barbed wire are a poor defense as compared with an educated 
conscience and a public sense of honor. Isaac Khamis of 
Urmia once told the writer that the great surprise he had 
on approaching the English coast was to learn that the 
cattle were left out on the hills over-night. In Persia the 
bashi-bazouks would have swooped down upon them and car- 
ried them away. The minimum of defense bespeaks the 
maximum of confidence. 

"We suspect no enemy; we contemplate or apprehend no 
conquest." A brave, noble utterance that, and the success 
of the Conference has been in exact proportion to the re- 
sponse made to the President's challenge in these pregnant 
words. The idea underlying the Washington treaties was 
that of settling only by agreement the misunderstandings 
that may come up. The entire proceedings seemed based 
on the conviction that you can get peace by friendly nego- 
tiations, that a cooperation of nations is not an idle dream, 
that a moral principle is a better safeguard than armed 
distrust. In explaining the provisions of the first actual 
agreement reached in the Conference — the Four-Power 
Treaty — Senator Lodge was careful to emphasize this 
point : 

A Moral Experiment 

"Each signer is bound to respect the rights of the others, and 
before taking action in any controversy to consult with them. 
There is no provision for the use of force to carry out any of 
the terms of the agreement and no military or naval sanction 
lurks anywhere, in the background or under cover of these plain 
and direct clauses. We rely upon their good faith to carry out 



The Healing of the Nations 49 

the terms of this instrument, knowing that by so doing they will 
prevent war should controversies ever arise among them. If 
this spirit prevails and rules we can have no better support than 
the faith of nations. For one^ I devoutly believe the spirit of 
the world is such that we can trust to the good faith and the high 
purposes which the treaty I have laid before you embodies and 
enshrines." 

In other words, the United States, Great Britain, Japan, 
and France agree to respect one another's rights in the 
Pacific and will try, under a solemn moral obligation, to 
reach a common understanding as to what they will do in the 
event that some other country seeks to violate these rights. 
It is hardly conceivable, however, that anybody will venture 
to challenge the rights in the Pacific of the four great 
powers that have made the treaty. 

For the first time in history the representatives of the 
puissant nations of the earth have met in conference and 
made a new venture in statecraft, the substituting of moral 
force for material power, an unequivocal endorsement of, 
and commitment to, the principle that international issues 
must be put on a moral basis. The League of Nations 
entered into a covenant based upon conditions created by 
a victorious war, conditions consented to by the defeated 
nations involuntarily under the duress exerted by victorious 
armies. It was an undertaking to preserve frontiers and 
conditions created by a successful war. At Washington 
the idea of force to be employed was distinctly disavowed 
and the treaties based upon the voluntary renunciation by 
all parties concerned of any purpose to disturb the status 
quo to their own advantage or to the injury or hurt of any 
other covenanted party. The Four-Power Treaty, thus 
resting entirely, like all the others, on a basis of confidence 
and good will, was pronounced by the Japanese premier, 
Baron Takahashi, as "the grandest contribution to the cause 
of peace ever recorded in history." 

The New Internationalism 

A new spirit is in possession, directing the course of 
affairs, and fashioning the destinies of nations. It seems 



50 The Healing of the Nations 

as if, to use the words of M. Philippe Millet, foreign editor 
of Petit Parisien, "the entire world desires to recommence 
business and live in peace." Lord Northcliffe has given his 
strongest endorsement to the ideals and proposals of the 
Conference. "I cannot conceive," he writes, "of any greater 
disaster than the failure of the Conference to achieve the 
ends for which it is called. It is essential that all should 
help to make it a success. We can all help. We can help 
by promoting good will, by not saying unkind things about 
other nations, by disarming our minds before we reduce our 
fleets." Speculation is rife at the moment as to whether 
the Conference will prove a self-perpetuating body and 
whether the idea of periodical conferences as contrasted 
with the permanent council at Geneva has taken root and 
will gain confidence. Whether the outcome of the Washing- 
ton Conference shall be an organization parallel to the 
League of Nations, or a substitute, or a qualified endorse- 
ment of it, there does not appear to be any necessary an- 
tagonism between them. Their methods differ ; their avowed 
ultimate objective is the same. The Conference is but one 
link in a long series of international undertakings, looking 
to peace, its immediate predecessor being the League of 
Nations, fifty-one of them, which is alive and at work today. 

The Last Resort. 

It will be patent to everyone that the question oftotal and 
immediate disarmament is not at present within the range of 
practical politics. Any proposals made now could only be 
partial and tentative; and the proposals now made and 
adopted will stand as a hope and guide to the future. To 
be safe, disarmament must be practically universal. Even 
under the terms of the Washington agreements it may yet be 
necessary in the last resort to take up arms for purposes 
of self-defense. The military or naval force necessary for 
this should be reduced to the lowest possible minimum, with 
no plans for aggressive action of any kind, until presently 
they have reached the level of a police force. Wars be- 
tween nations may be so minimized and humanized by means 
of an international code of law as to become as inconse- 



The Healing of the Nations 51 

quential as riots and similar manifestations of lawlessness, 
and as easily controlled. 

The work of the Conference, as crystallized in these 
separate and distinct treaties, will require, of course, the 
ratification of the different governments. What will happen 
now in the various countries to which the pacts of the Con- 
ference go is going to depend upon the spirit of the peoples 
to which they are submitted. The limitation of armament 
rests, even as world disarmament must and eventually will 
rest, on unionism, on a practical application of the brother- 
hood of man to international problems. Toward this end, 
America, through this Conference, has made contributions 
of the first importance, and has become the foremost modern 
exponent of the idea of great nations of free citizens held 
together by bonds of mutual confidence, to which the Greek 
and Roman Republics gave expression, and of the value of 
which the England and France of the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries gave further illustrations. This leaves no 
room, however, for self-righteousness, gratulation or com- 
placence. America's activity in seeking to help bring about a 
United States of the World has been all the more remarkable 
on account of her hesitancy to enter the European war and 
her refusal to join the League of Nations. She could not 
have escaped much longer, however, from taking her place 
in the great sisterhood of states ; the pressure of circum- 
stances would have proved too great, notwithstanding the 
zealous group of American "patriots" who would still con- 
tinue to save their country from "entangling international 
alliances," and who have proclaimed aloud their purpose to 
kill the Conference treaties in the Senate. 24 We also hear 
the shrill outcries of an ignoble section of the organs of the 
Press seeking to stir up suspicion and strife. 

American Isolation 

Men and women everywhere are becoming more and more 
convinced, however, that war must cease if civilization is to 
survive, and that war can only be averted through under- 
standing and cooperation. Professor Wilbur C. Abbott 

"Note C. "Washington Conference," p. 237. 



52 The Healing of the Nations 

describes America as "a country which is emerging slowly, 
reluctantly, and painfully from a complacent provincial- 
ism," and there surely is need of larger knowledge and truer 
comprehension of other peoples on our part. The former 
segregation, indeed the self-centered isolation, which George 
Washington urged upon our people in 1796 was a wise and 
necessary policy until the products of the diverse early 
stocks had become unified and solidified and the country 
had had time to put its free institutions to the test. Now, 
however, it would be an anachronism. Internationalizing 
forces have been at work in our country's life, and our more 
than a century's experience in democratic government has 
qualified us to take our part in the affairs of the world. 

America's Mission and Opportunity 
America's freedom from ancient traditions of empire, 
autocracy, expansion, and secret diplomacy have given her 
a very solid advantage in leadership in the present state of 
mind of the greater part of the world. In the short interim 
since the close of the Great War emperors and kings have 
fallen, age-old dynasties have been blasted, and new govern- 
ments and peoples have succeeded in their place. "God 
said, 'I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more.' " 25 It 
is our fortunate lot to have been most accessible to modern 
liberalizing ideas and to be in the most advantageous posi- 
tion, now that the Old World is only slowly recovering from 
its wounds, to play the leading, most powerful part in estab- 
lishing these ideas in the world. Of our country's willingness 
to play that responsible part, there can no longer exist any 
doubt. I have already mentioned some of the numerous 
and substantial expressions of America's good will toward 
all people even during her period of detachment from world- 
politics ; but never was that spirit stronger or so manifest 
as at the present hour. 

Disrupting Elements 

There may be a certain section of the American press, a cer- 
tain brand of politicians, and a few other ill-affected units who 

28 Emerson, Poems, "Boston Hymn." 



The Healing of the Nations 53 

are "disposed to feast goulishly upon the civil cachexia of our 
neighbor nations." 26 But such a disposition in no wise reflects 
the real spirit of the Republic, which is one of intense and uni- 
versal interest and good will. I say "interest/' because I ques- 
tion if there be any other country whose people generally take 
so great and intelligent an interest in foreign affairs. This is 
but natural, inasmuch as they come here from every country 
under the sun, and make this land their home. There is an open, 
if incoherent, press campaign against disarmament, against 
England, France, Japan, and other countries, whose chief pur- 
pose seems to be to excite suspicion and create a hostile senti- 
ment favorable to war. It receives support in various ways from 
a certain class of politicians. They have little or no use for 
"the sentimental 'I love everybody' type." They scatter reck- 
lessly sparks that at any moment may explode a magazine or 
kindle a conflagration. This malignant and criminal tendency 
to play upon prejudice and to make false appeals to patriotism 
meets with little favor nowadays among the vast majority of 
our people or their representatives. Some politicians there 
are, even some senators, who would put their own party and 
its interests before and above all else. This I have actually 
known to happen in other countries also. It seems like a 
remnant of the old Adam that still clings to unregenerate human 
nature. But taken by and large this is a broad-minded, large- 
hearted nation, charitable in judgment, generous in its spirit. 
She has thrown her gates open to people of all nations, rich 
and poor, elite and riff-raff, and all between. The little anti- 
Japanese, anti-Chinese, anti- Jewish prejudice which has shown 
itself in spots is a negligible quantity as compared with the 
preponderating spirit of neighborliness and impartiality. The 
race problem is admittedly the most difficult of all; but the fact 
that in a question so hotly debated as that of Japanese ex- 
clusion more than two hundred thousand citizens of California 
should have been found to vote against the proposed anti-Japa- 
nese legislation is an indication that helpful influences are at 
work in this most difficult field. 

Occasionally, just to humor their own peculiar sense of 
superiority, folks indulge in such epithets as "Chinks," and 
"Dagoes," "Japs," and "Sheenies," which is certainly bad man- 
ners, but which should not be taken too seriously. The egotism 
of youth, which is also a characteristic of young nations, must 
not be mistaken for blatant boorishness or overweening con- 

28 The Pacific Review, March, 1921, p. 552. 



54 The Healing of the Nations 

ceit. There is no sting to it. He is really very good-natured 
about it. And it will soon pass into saner self-consciousness 
in its contact with the hard facts of experience. In what mine 
or factory or on what playground in the world will you find such 
a varied assortment of nationalities as in the United States, 
where we work together and play together, and where "Heinie" 
and Ito Fijumori are cheered on their merits just as readily and 
just as lustily as Mike, or Sandie, or "Hoosier Joe"? 

Blemishes on the Scutcheon 

No, the sins of America are not such as arise from racial or 
national prejudice or pure malevolence, but are rather of a 
domestic character, so to speak, and such as militate against 
her moral and spiritual development, — such as political cor- 
ruption, sneak legislation, the abuse of public office, graft, and 
gambling, and profanity, reckless waste and extravagance, the 
worship of "things," and an inordinate love of pleasure and 
amusement. "Politics" has indeed too sinister a meaning here, 27 
and about one-half of the population take little or no interest 
in confessional religion of any sort. And yet, with all our 
faults, and they are grievous enough, we can well understand 
Lowell's spirited remonstrance against the strictures of the 
"condescending foreigner," 28 and quite fully endorse Emerson's 
estimate of the national character and of the country's destiny. 
"After all the deductions which are to be made for our pitiful 
politics, which stake every gravest national question on the silly 
die . . . after all the deduction is made for our frivolities and 
insanities, there still remains an organic simplicity and liberty, 
which, when it loses its balance, redresses itself presently, which 
offers opportunity to the human mind not known in any other 
region. . . . Youth is a fault of which we shall daily mend. 
... If only the men are employed in conspiring with the de- 
signs of the Spirit who led us hither, and is leading us still, we 
shall quickly enough advance out of all hearing of others' 
censures, out of all regrets of our own, into a new and more 
excellent social state than history has recorded." 29 

Before America can measure up to the greatness of her op- 
portunity these debilitating elements must be promptly subdued 
or eliminated, and there must be a ready and unanimous response 
on the part of the better elements in all parties to the prompt- 

27 See Emerson's Essays, "Heroism" (last paragraph). 

28 My Study Windows, "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners." 

29 Emerson's Essays, "The Young American," 3. 



The Healing of the Nations 55 

ings of the Spirit whose leadership in the past we gratefully 
acknowledge. 

Slowly, but surely, America seems to have come to a reali- 
zation of her mission as an integral factor in the community 
of nations. The hour of her great opportunity has struck. 
The call to leadership in world affairs is clear and unmis- 
takable. She has felt in her soul the "cosmic urge" toward 
peace and freedom; and by "freedom" is meant not the 
negative idea of "being left alone," but the condition and 
state of fullest development. It was the prophetic insight 
of the true poet, and by no means an exaggerated patriot- 
ism or chauvinism, which led Longfellow to say, and with 
a deeper meaning than he knew : 

. "Sail on, O Ship of State! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate !" 30 

American Leadership 

We now realize that America is the privileged embodiment 
of a universal "state of mind," and that this is the day of 
her visitation, the hour of her supreme opportunity. The 
world is aching for leadership — particularly leadership 
that is believed to join, in just balance, altruism and com- 
mon sense. Such leadership can change the world's course 
in almost any direction — for the present, at least, and until 
the nations have recovered from the shock and damage of 
the recent war. And a ten years' naval holiday will help 
very materially to determine the attitude of the nations for 
all future time. Meanwhile, the human world's center of 
gravity having shifted to America, our country, and, it is 
to be hoped, all other countries, will grow in moral grandeur, 
as well as in material power and prosperity. For the ful- 
filment of this her apparent destiny, she must not be hin- 
dered or embarrassed by self-seeking party factions, or a 
narrow, petty patriotism, but all must unite in acclaiming 

30 The Building of the Ship. 



56 The Healing of the Nations 

her most recent notable achievement and in bidding her 
Godspeed in her future course. 

"Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, — 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee!" 

The Arms Conference, conceived in good will and carried 
on in good faith, is over, and the delegates have returned 
home to submit their reports to their respective govern- 
ments and to seek their approval. Men's hopes run high. 
The world is in a fairly optimistic mood, judged by the 
utterances of its leading spokesmen. 

President Harding's Valedictory 

At the concluding session of the Conference, President Har- 
ding said, in part: "This Conference has wrought a truly great 
achievement. It is hazardous sometimes to speak in superla- 
tives, and I will be restrained. But I will say with every con- 
fidence, that the faith plighted here today, kept in national 
honor, will mark the beginning of a new and better epoch in 
human progress. 

Stripped to the simplest fact, what is the spectacle which has 
inspired a new hope for the world? Gathered about this table 
nine great nations of the earth — not all, to be sure, but those 
most directly concerned with the problems at hand — have met 
and have conferred on questions of great import and common 
concern, on problems menacing their peaceful relationship, on 
burdens threatening a common peril. . . . Without surrender of 
sovereignty, without impaired nationality or offended national 
pride, a solution has been found in unanimity, and today's 
adjournment is marked by rejoicing in the things accomplished. 
. . . Here was a Conference of sovereign powers where only 
unanimous agreement could be made the rule. Majorities could 
not decide without impinging national rights. There were no 
victors to command, no vanquished to yield. All had voluntarily 
to agree in translating the conscience of our civilization and give 
concrete expression to world opinion. . . . 

It is not pretended that the pursuit of peace and the limitation 
of armaments are new conceits. . . . The Hague Conferences 



The Healing of the Nations 57 

were defeated by the antagonism of one strong power whose 
indisposition to cooperate and sustain led it to one of the 
supreme tragedies which have come to national eminence. . . . 
At this table came understanding, and understanding brands 
armed conflict as abominable in the eyes of enlightened civiliza- 
tion. . . . Justice is better served in conferences of peace than 
in conflicts at arms. ... It may be that the naval holiday here 
contracted will expire with the treaties, but I do not believe it. 
Those of us who live another decade are more likely to witness 
a growth of public opinion, strengthened by the new experience, 
which shall make nations more concerned with living to the 
fulfilment of God's high intent than with agencies of warfare 
and destruction." 

Impressions of the Washington Conference 

Mr. A. J. (now Earl) Balfour, head of the British delegation, 
said : "It is owing to the genius and inspiration of those who have 
directed the policy of the United States that this day stands out 
unique in history as one of a great successful effort to diminish 
the burdens of peace and render more remote the horrors of 
war. . . . May we not see in the changed feeling of men that 
already the work of this Conference has produced its beneficent 
results; that already a feeling, a mutual feeling, of fear has 
given way to a feeling of a very different character? . . . We 
can say with absolute assurance that this diminution in the 
weapons of war has been accompanied by a great augmentation 
of national security. ,, 

Premier Lloyd George declared that "the result is one of the 
finest achievements ever registered in the history of the world." 

M. Albert Sarraut, speaking for France, declared his convic- 
tion "that the Conference had gone a long way toward safe- 
guarding the peace of the world and had created a great 
example for history. We cannot write our own appreciation of 
our work, for it lacks the necessary perspective. But in our 
common endeavor we can recognize the good will that has been 
shown on every side. The people of the nations which have 
been engaged here are studying our thoughts. They will see 
whether they be good or not. When the inventory is being 
written I am sure that it will show that no sordid thought ever 
entered the heart of any one of us. . . . By diminishing the 
causes of war, and decreasing the weapons of war, we have 
reduced the possibility of war." M. Sarraut further described 
the Conference as "the loftiest precedent of mankind." 



58 The Healing of the Nations 

Senator Carlo Schanzer, speaking for Italy, declared "the 
Conference marked the point of departure of a new era of 
peace. The Conference had been able to do nothing regarding 
land armaments, but Italy had already reduced her land forces 
to a small figure. ... No one can deny the fundamental im- 
portance of limitation of land armaments for the future asset of 
the world, and the urgency of finding a satisfactory solution 
to this problem with the shortest possible delay." Senator 
Schanzer called attention to the coming Economic Conference 
to be held at Genoa, and declared an economic rearrangement is 
a necessary concomitant of the new era. He expressed a hope 
that the United States would not withdraw from its participation 
in the councils of the world. 

Admiral Baron Kato, chief of the Japanese delegation, said 
"the United States had done the world a service that will live 
in history as long as history lives. " He said the Hughes naval 
reduction program of November 12 was "obviously a stroke of 
genius," and added that the broad principle enunciated in the 
plan was "one by which no men with any sense of reason and 
justice can remain unmoved. ... In Japan we realized that a 
new spirit of moral consciousness had come over the world, 
but we could not bring ourselves truly to believe that it had 
struck so deeply into the souls of men until we came to Wash- 
ington. We came and we have learned; and in turn we have, I 
think, given evidence such as no man can mistake, that Japan 
is ready for the new order of thought — the spirit of inter- 
national friendship and cooperation for the greater good of 
humanity — which the Conference has brought about." 

Dr. Sao Ke Alfred Sze, chairman of the Chinese delegation, 
writes, "One of the most gratifying phases of our participation 
in the Conference on Limitation of Armament and Pacific Far 
Eastern Problems has been the realization that the American 
people are so wholeheartedly behind the aims and ideals of the 
Conference. . . . Speaking specifically regarding the problems 
of China, I am certain that this gathering of the representatives 
of the various nations with interests in the Pacific will result 
in lasting good." 

Admiral Tsai, at a reception given in his honor, said, "The 
Chinese delegates are satisfied — more than satisfied. It has 
been a wonderful world event, this Conference. Just think, for 
years 400,000,000 Chinese have allowed our nearest neighbor 
to squat in Shantung. Then a few delegates, called together 
by Uncle Sam, within a period of three weeks oust them. It's 
the dawning of a new era, a better era and an era of recon- 



The Healing of the Nations 59 

struction and better things for China. . . . The United States 
and China will continue to be friends forever. . . . America has 
been charged with materialism. Your materialism saved Europe. 
Your materialism made it possible to loan $11,000,000,000 to 
the Allies. Your materialism has enabled you to send food to 
Russia and to save the starving millions of China. Your ma- 
terialism has been the stepping-stone to a high idealism. Be 
proud of your materialism. The rest of the world does not, 
cannot, correctly interpret the soul of America. It takes a 
Chinese to do that." 

Cardinal O'Connell reports the newly-elected Pope Pius XI. 
as saying, "I was happy to see your peace-loving country take 
the first step toward amelioration of this monstrous evil of 
armament. I always have had great respect and admiration for 
the American people, for their great activity, the youthful 
energy with which they do things. America has done much to 
open a new era of peace and tranquillity by the Conference 
just closed. . . . You Americans are young in years but old 
in wisdom, worldly prudence and foresight. Your innate qual- 
ities of fairness, justice, and peacefulness, your great moral and 
spiritual stability and your infinite riches, make you the hope 
and sheet-anchor of the world." 

The Growth of Democracy 

Ten years from now, it will be interesting and edifying 
to recall these utterances in the light of conditions as they 
will have developed by that time. The treaties, to become 
effective, must be ratified by the various governments repre- 
sented at the Conference, and the governments of the world 
are becoming more largely democratic both in their ideas 
and machinery. To borrow the terse and pregnant phrase, 
first used in 1384, "government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people," 31 is becoming more and more the order 
of the new day. And this applies not only to European, but 
also to the Asiatic nations. The Chinese delegates are 
"satisfied" that under the terms of the treaties China*s right 
to self-determination and self-development are fully recog- 
nized and safeguarded. And while Japan has some imperial- 
istic ambitions and a truculent jingo party, it has also an 

31 Wyclif and Hereford in the Preface to their translation of the 
Bible (1384). 



60 The Healing of the Nations 

influential group of enlightened statesmen who are bent on 
peace and determined to handle in the interests of peace the 
difficult and pressing problems that face the nation. The 
fire-eaters will be in evidence, of course, in Japan, in Amer- 
ica, and in other countries. They will inveigh against the 
Conference, against America, against the naval holiday, and 
against everything else that the Washington meeting 
attempted or failed to accomplish. But the final verdict 
will rest with the people of the nations. 



A World Conscience 

President Harding expressed his belief that "world 
opinion" had directed the deliberations of the Conference, 
and that "world conscience" had impelled its decisions. 
Public opinion, then, is no longer favorable to competitive 
increase of the implements of war as contributory to peace; 
the collective conscience of the world now demands that we 
apply the same moral code to the conduct of nations as has 
been constructed and found effective in our personal and 
interstate relationships. The Washington pacts are based 
on an understood, unwritten international code of ethics 
and honor, and are thus in keeping with the thought of the 
twentieth century, which turns to reason and justice as 
against force, for the settlement of social and industrial 
quarrels and the solution of international problems. A 
world war-stricken and weary, a world utterly distraught 
and disillusioned, is calling for a sweeping alteration of 
political and governmental ideals, frankly impatient of a 
social philosophy based on the idea of the right of might 
and "let him take who has the power and let him keep who 



''The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

We find ourselves indeed "among new men, strange faces, 
other minds." Our lot is cast between two world-eras, the 
one in the slow throes of death, the other struggling to be 



The Healing of the Nations 61 

born. While we have sworn off our allegiance to the old, 
our allegiance to the new is not yet complete. But it will 
come; the one process would be meaningless without the 
other. "Jehovah brought us out, that he might bring 
us in." 32 

^Deut. 6 23. 



CHAPTER III 



THE REIGN OF HUMANITY 

The Feudal System 

The knightly system of feudal times served a good pur- 
pose in a rude, half-barbarous age. The obligations which 
were imposed on the members of the order consisted in the 
maintaining of right, the championship of woman, protec- 
tion of the weak and defenseless, and mercy to the defeated 
foe. The noble knight went forth clad in armor, strong in 
the sense of right and duty. 

"His might ful hand striking great blows 
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world." 

But under the feudal system his vision was necessarily lim- 
ited and his duties circumscribed, for the laws of chivalry 
applied almost wholly to those of high birth, and many 
abuses crept in, knightly service oft became an occasion of 
evil. The old order of knighthood passed away, but its 
spirit was preserved and transferred to other forms of 
service, more fitted to the new world of the Magna Carta. 
Feudal civilization had sought in some measure to purify 
and discipline the fiercer passions of man, to protect the 
weak and to emphasize the dignity of human nature as such, 
to refine manners, to transform war of conquest into war 
for defense, to suppress slavery and establish free labor. 
The results achieved were but partial and provisional. In 
the midst of much confusion and many false ideas the chival- 
ric movement played a great part in helping to usher in 
the dawn: 

"When dreams 
Begin to feel the truth and stir of day." 
62 



The Healing of the Nations 63 

The world has since been moving slowly but steadily along 
the lines of constitutional liberty and social development, 
based on the great charter of 1215. From Plantagenet 
times to the present, in Western lands and in lands under 
Western influence, we see 

"Freedom slowly broadening down 
From precedent to precedent/' 33 

until political democracy finds its final expression over the 
Western world in equality of opportunity and in the achieve- 
ment of full man and woman suffrage. The fulfilment of 
this ideal is most clearly illustrated in England which, in 
1918, erected the principle of political democracy upon its 
statute books in the most complete and definite form. Simi- 
lar rights and privileges of women were a little later em- 
bodied in Amendment XIX to the Constitution of the 
United States of America. 



Women of the Romance Period 

The brave knights of old went forth to fight "in the name 
of God and their ladies." And the presence of women in 
the hour of battle with their husbands, fathers, brothers, 
friends and lovers, afforded the highest incentive to courage. 
Women were held in a peculiar reverence, from the queen to 
the humblest demoiselle, and any indignity to them was vis- 
ited with stern reprisal. 

"There was cried in this country a great justs three days: 
and all the knights of the country were there and gentlewomen; 
and who that proved him the best knight should have a passing 
good sword and a circlet of gold, and the circlet the knight 
should give it to the fairest lady that was at the justs. And 
this knight, Sir Pelleas, was the best knight that was there, 
and there were five hundred knights, but there was never man 
that ever Sir Pelleas met withal, but he struck him down, or 
else from his horse. And every day of three days he struck 
down twenty knights, therefore they gave him the prize. And 
forthwithal he went there as the lady Ettard was, and gave her 
the circlet, and said openly she was the fairest lady that there 

M Tennyson, You Ask Me, Why. 



64 The Healing of the Nations 

was, and that would he prove upon any knight that would say 
nay. And so he chose her for his sovereign lady, and never to 
love other but her." 34 

"For unto knight there was no greater shame 
Than lightness and inconstancy in love. ,, 35 

"Upon Michaelmas-day the bishop of Canterbury made the 
wedding betwixt Sir Gareth and the lady Liones with great 
solemnity. . . . Then came into the court thirty ladies, and all 
they seemed widows, and those thirty ladies brought with them 
many fair gentlewomen; and all they kneeled down at once unto 
king Arthur and to Sir Gareth, and there all these ladies told 
the king how Sir Gareth had delivered them from the dolorous 
tower, and slew the brown knight without pity; and therefore 
we and our heirs for evermore will do homage unto Sir Gareth 
of Orkney. So then the kings and queens, princes, earls and 
barons, and many bold knights went unto meat, and well may 
ye wit that there was all manner of meat plenteously, all manner 
revels and games, with all manner of minstrelsy that was used 
in those days. Also there was great justs three days. But 
the king would not suffer Sir Gareth to just because of his new 
bride. ,, 36 

With all necessary allowance for the romancer's fertile 
fancy, we have in these passages a fairly faithful account 
of the esteem in which woman was held, and of the knight's 
loyalty to his queen and lady. Sir Geraint had well-nigh 
lost the day in his contest with Edyrn until he was reminded 
of the insult done Guinevere. 

"And thrice 
They clash'd together, and thrice they brake their spears. 
Then each, dishorsed and drawing, lash'd at each 
So often and with such blows, that all the crowd 
Wonder'd, and now and then from distant walls 
There came a clapping as of phantom hands. 

So twice they fought, and twice they breathed, and still 

The dew of their great labor, and the blood 

Of their strong bodies, flowing, drain'd their force. 

34 Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. IV, Ch. xx. 

35 Spenser, Faerie Queene. 

88 Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. VII, Ch. xxxv. 



The Healing of the Nations 65 

But either's force was match'd till Yniol's cry, 
'Remember that great insult done the Queen/ 

Increased Geraint's, who heaved his blade aloft, 
And crack'd the helmet thro', and bit the bone, 
And feird him, and set foot upon his breast." 37 

The poems, romances and chronicles of the medieval 
times bear witness to the general humanizing influence of 
womanhood and ladyhood when there was much of savage 
passion and cruelty even among the knights themselves. In 
nothing was this better seen than in the ladies' gentle care 
of the wounded knight, be he friend or foe, as they stanched 
his bleeding, and anointed his head, and otherwise ministered 
to his needs. Woman's power was especially felt in the 
higher ranks, even allowing for extravagant and courtly 
professions of love and reverence. She could rule, but not 
govern. Often the object of actual adoration, she had 
neither voice nor vote in any matter pertaining to the gov- 
ernment of her country or the welfare of her sex. She could 
make the most abject slave of any bold and noble knight; 
when she became his wife, she must "love, honor and obey." 
She could bring up and train lawmakers, but she must not 
make laws. She could make or undo kings and great states- 
men, while her highest parliamentary privilege was to peep 
through the gallery screen at the assembly of wise men 
below. For the right to a seat in that witenagemot, or of 
saying who should represent her interests, her children's 
and her country's interests there, she has had to wait and 
work and pray and starve and fight for full seven hundred 
years. Nor is her emancipation yet complete. 

Relics of Barbarism 

With the increasing refinement of the times, many of the 
ruder and crueler customs and institutions have disappeared. 
Gone are the duel and the tournament, the Book of Sports, 
bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and the execution of witches, 
the Bastille and the Inquisition, piracy, outlawry, the public 
gallows and the treadmill, suttee, polygamy, slavery, and 

"Tennyson, Geraint and Enid. 



66 The Healing of the Nations 

(in America) the open saloon. Our museums are filled with 
the relics and memorials of an effete civilization. Healthy 
and innocent sport has supplanted cruel and violent exhibi- 
tions of skill and strength. Gambling and boodling, child 
labor and slum tenements, strikes and lockouts, lynching, 
kukluxism, and the prize-ring are still among the things 
waiting to be scrapped as obsolete in a modern state. 

The Fallacy of "Superiority" 

The four great movements of modern history are the 
emancipation of the intellect through the Renaissance, the 
emancipation of the spirit through the Reformation, the 
emancipation of the slave, and the emancipation of woman, 
not one of which is yet complete, but all of which are in 
progress. A good gauge of the world's advance is found in 
the discarding of the idea of "superiority," as of man to 
woman, or of the white man to any other, or of one group 
of men to any other group. A hundred years ago the Boston 
School Board was distracted and divided as to whether girls 
should be admitted to the Boston High School. But art 
and science know no sex, and now, greatly to the world's 
enrichment, all the avenues of learning are open to any 
who would walk therein. No longer a chattel, a slave, or a 
plaything of man, woman takes her place by his side as a 
free-born citizen of the universe. This assumption of 
superiority on the part of individuals, social, political, and 
religious groups lies back of most of our troubles. In 1565 
Sir John Hawkins commanded a ship bearing the name of 
the Jesus, which carried to America four hundred slaves 
stolen from the coast of Africa, and that famous English- 
man duly acknowledged in his diary the Divine Providence 
which had given them a safe passage, for the Lord is mindful 
of His own. Three hundred years later there was not a 
slave in any English-speaking country. And as we have 
seen the abolition of slavery, once declared to be very incon- 
venient, so shall a future generation see the elimination of 
physical force in the settlement of economic and national 
disputes, which many think quixotic. 

The time is coming when they shall no longer say, The 



The Healing of the Nations 67 

God that answereth by fire and the sword, and pestilence 
and poison-gas, let him be God; but rather will they say, 
The God that answereth by schools, and churches, and libra- 
ries, and hospitals, and asylums, and orphanages, and homes 
for the blind, the crippled, and the aged, is alone worthy of 
our praise and adoration. 

Conventional Christianity 

Conventional Christianity is a compromise between Chris- 
tian ideals and worldly policy, or, in diplomatic phrase, "the 
exigencies of the particular situation." It has preached 
peace while it has sanctioned and blessed wars started at 
the bidding of tyrants and physical force used for commer- 
cial gain. It has forced its brandy and opium upon heathen 
peoples. It has tacitly favored the enslavement of the help- 
less many in the interest of the powerful few. It has called 
itself "the light of the world" while it has frowned upon 
science, imprisoned its best thinkers, and burned its re- 
formers. It has taught human equality while it has all too 
often forgotten that the lowliest drudge is a brother to 
the highest in the land according to the flesh, and also a 
spiritual brother for whom Christ died. Even as the ancient 
Heorews were delivered out of slavery in Egypt only to 
make slaves of the Canaanites, so did America claim its 
freedom and declare its independence of English tyranny 
and oppression, and then grow largely rich and prosperous 
by the toil of the enslaved negro. The old slavery in time 
passes away, but only to be succeeded by an industrial sys- 
tem of ruthless, insane competition which enslaves both the 
employer and employee ; which renders the weak the prey of 
the strong; which corners the markets; which sends boys 
and girls of tender years into its mills and mines and fac- 
tories, and its women into the sweatshops and on the streets. 
The Church has derived not a little of its revenue from the 
slaves of Circe and from reeky tenements. It has talked 
and temporized when it should have acted quickly. When 
the Congoese were being mutilated and the Armenians were 
slaughtered, Christian nations "abode beyond the Jordan." 
They denounced King Leopold a little, and "damned" the 



68 The Healing of the Nations 

Sultan a good deal, and then "they sat among the sheep- 
folds to hear the pipings for the flocks, and abode by their 
bays," and let it go at that. 

Reform Christianity 

Meanwhile, however, silent but powerful forces were at 
work — had long been at work. Thanks to the earnest 
labors of a faithful remnant of heroic, consecrated souls, 
resolved on lifting up the throne of the Lord among men 
and yearning for the redemption of society, there has come 
about a humanizing of economics, of science, of law, of 
charity, of punishment, and of war itself ; and the impulse, 
the religion, which has produced these results has not all 
come from the pulpits, by any means, but largely from our 
poets, professors, biologists, jurists, sociologists, and jour- 
nalists. The Church is a means for spiritual life and 
guidance, but not the only or chief source. There have 
been times when men had to break with the priests and to 
turn away from the preacher in order to follow God and 
retain their hold upon reality. At such times, while not 
undervaluing the Church as a civilizing and inspiring force 
in society, they have been compelled to rely still more 
on the inwardness and immediacy of their own moral and 
spiritual intuitions. Remnants of barbarism are still too 
often associated with a profession of Christianity both 
among peoples and individuals. 38 

"The Remainder of Wrath" 

There are indeed still those among us who deny the cor- 
rectness of the new spirit of humanity in the case of war. 
Mr. Arthur Brisbane says, in his easy, off-hand way, "Make 
war as frightful as possible. That is the only way to 
end it." But never in the world! The exact reverse of 
this is the truth. That only brutalizes men still more. 
The outraged conscience of humanity cries out against it. 
In the late war the amenities exchanged between the soldiers 
in the first-line trenches during the truce-hour did more to 
kill the war-spirit than all their fighting. Its own ruth- 

88 Cf . G. A. Smith, Book of the Twelve Prophets, I, 138f. 



The Healing of the Nations 69 

lessness did more than anything else to destroy the morale 
of the German army, while the cries of outraged women in 
the enemy's rear made "the ladies from hell" furious and 
irresistible. Cruelty is the infallible precursor of ruin. 
The "treat 'em rough" method is not new. The Assyrians 
tried it. Their annals tell us about chariots fixed with 
scythes; about great baskets stuffed with the salted heads 
of their foes ; about prisoners being flayed alive. The 
Ammonites and Moabites practised it. They stopped at 
nothing, but would wreak their vengeance on embryo and 
on corpse alike. Did these atrocities put an end to war? 
They only fanned the flames of war the more. Edom 
"pursued his brother with the sword, and did cast off all 
pity, and his anger did tear perpetually," and he perished 
like the rest of them. 

Vandalism 

When Epiphanes profaned the Temple, the sacrilege 
drove the Jews to a height of frenzy unparalleled in their 
history. People are sensitive above all things about their 
sanctuaries. Nothing made Londoners more "mad" than 
to hear the whir of bombing aeroplanes over the cathedrals. 
An English woman who had seen service in military hos- 
pitals was agonized to think of the possible destruction of 
Westminster Abbey. "O, I hope they do not hit the Abbey ! 
You may not understand it, for you are not an English- 
man, but the Abbey means all of our past to us. It is the 
mausoleum of our great dead, and the very soul of our 
spiritual England." 39 Ruthlessness ! Did the dum-dum 
bullet and liquid fire and poison-gas tend to abate the war- 
spirit? It only made millions feel that the Armistice had 
come a little too soon. Any nation persistently guilty 
of wanton cruelty signs its own death-warrant, and hastens 
its own doom. "The remainder of wrath," the excess of 
e ury, God himself will restrain. 

What Will End War 

What, then, will put an end to war? There are several 
factors, more or less potent, which together may be re- 
89 J. M. M. Gray, The Contemporary Christ. 



70 The Healing of the Nations 

garded as contributory to that end. Nothing, of course, 
can bring war to a perpetual end which leaves uneradicated 
the old, deep-seated causes of war. The limitation of 
armaments, good as far as it goes, leaves most of these 
untouched. The Arms Conference, while it helped to re- 
lieve the pessimism into which the world was plunged when 
America failed to participate in the deliberations of the 
League of Nations, did not do much directly to get at the 
root causes of war. But indirectly and by tacit understand- 
ings it did a good deal. It did not deal with the economic 
rivalries which lead to war. It did not abolish large stand- 
ing armies which are inevitably provocative of war. It 
removed competition between the navies of the United States 
and Great Britain, and it abolished the Anglo-Japanese 
alliance, all of which will materially help in promoting the 
peace of the world. 

The Cost of War 

The outstanding reasons for limitation of armament 
are, of course, to reduce the provocations of war, and to 
lighten the terrible burden of expense. There are certain 
laws which make a good understanding and a spirit of good 
will essential between the nations if the world is to be 
saved from continued economic decadence and ultimate 
economic disintegration. The Washington Conference was 
called in recognition of the imperativeness of these economic 
laws, and from a foreboding of economic and social disaster 
if the burden of militarism was not alleviated, and these also 
were the major factors in influencing the statesmen of the 
world to accept the invitation. It had necessarily to limit 
its program and confine its discussions to the most urgent 
and practicable aspects of the problem. Future conferences, 
wherever held, will have to deal with the economic status and 
economic reconstruction of the world. There is the matter 
of excessive armies, the costs of which are breaking the 
backs of several Old World States. Europe owes America 
$11,000,000,000, and before the first payment is made this 
will amount to $12,000,000,000. The people of all lands 
are growing uneasy over the increasing burden of debt 



The Healing of the Nations 71 

and taxation ; nor will the reduction of the annual expendi- 
ture for war purposes of a given nation, from say 93 °/o 
to 79%, satisfy over-burdened people. The total peace 
cost of the armies and navies of the ten leading military 
nations of the earth is $1,983,571,000 per year. Sixteen 
first line battleships of the United States cost $167,611,- 
692. The "Pennsylvania" cost $13,393,681 to build, the 
"Mississippi" $15,556,324, and the "Tennessee" $18,437,- 
154. Today the largest battleships cost over $40,000,000 
each. To maintain a single dreadnought costs $1,800,000 
per year. Yet the last war seemed to prove dreadnoughts 
nearly useless. The World War cost the United States 
$24,010,000,000 (inclusive of the $9,523,000,000 loaned to 
foreign Governments). In that war Great Britain spent 
more in four and one-half years than in the two hundred and 
fifty years preceding. In 1920, the United States spent 
7.4% on all Civil Departments and 92.6% on war. 

The Genoa Convention marks the next vitally important 
effort toward the fulfilment of the world's desire for pros- 
perous peace. Like the Washington Conference, it is based 
on the principle that war is not necessary to the adjust- 
ment of international differences, and its primary purpose 
is to discuss the economic questions of Europe, especially 
the present condition of the central and eastern states of 
Europe, including Russia. It is hoped that it will result 
in practical measures which will establish the general and 
real peace of the world on a solid basis, and effect the 
economic rehabilitation of all the nations involved. "Of 
course," as Mr. Kengo Mori, head of the Japanese delega- 
tion to that conference, remarked, "the self-help of each 
state is most essential for the general restoration of Europe, 
but mutual help and international cooperation among all 
these states, and even among all other nations of the world, 
are necessary in order to attain the object in view. In- 
deed, the European economic question is the world's ques- 
tion under the present economic and financial systems, 
which bring together so closely all the nations of the world." 

[Since these words were written the Genoa and Lausanne Conferences 
have served to disclose a most complicated situation, a congestion and 
conflict of interests, and the urgent need of Christian leadership.] 



72 The Healing of the Nations 

The Solidarity of the Race 

The world is growing into an economic whole. Easy 
means of transportation and economic demands are bring- 
ing all classes and nations closer together, and thus to 
realize their interdependence and consequent need of a 
better mutual understanding. They rise or fall together. 
No member of the great world of nations can afford to say 
to any other member, "I have no need of thee." The 
solidarity of the human race has been definitely established. 
In old times the people of the next parish were regarded as 
strangers and foreigners, even if not always as natural 
enemies. The peasant could raise nearly all he needed for 
his simple life on his own little farm. This is changing; 
the world is coming to self-realization as a great social 
organism. "Whether one member suffereth, all the mem- 
bers suffer with it." When the first shells burst over the 
Servian capital, the report was heard in the Lancashire 
factories, the Australian banks, the mills of Alabama, and 
in all the markets of the world. Heavy as our tax burden 
is in the United States, Secretary Hoover says it is still 
less than one-half as great in proportion to our national 
productivity as that of the other states in the war. As a 
people we are getting our bearings in a world of perplexing 
economic adjustments. Both in matters of finance and trade, 
Great Britain is "coming back" in a wonderful way. But 
these will prove only temporary health-spots in a diseased 
body unless the rest of the world can be restored to economic 
and social health. 

Prejudice and ill-will are largely the result of isolation. 
Savage tribes court it. Isaiah's cosmopolitanism saved his 
nation from political despair and spiritual collapse, and 
made him the first great world-evangelist. "In that day 
shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the 
Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into 
Assyria ; and the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyr- 
ians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt 
and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth." 
It is only through international intercourse and friendship 
and cooperation that the human race can be perfected. 



The Healing of the Nations 73 

The spirit of good will makes for the good health of the 
entire body politic. "Whether one member is honored, all 
the members rejoice with it." When the nations are work- 
ing together in the promotion of arts and crafts, of scien- 
tific discovery and useful invention, it adds greatly, not 
only to the capital of humanity, but to humanity itself. 
But when the nations are working in friendly rivalry, and 
with generous recognition of each other's good work, there 
be those that cherish the evil mind, and seek to make use 
of that competition to fire up the passions of jealousy and 
hostility — and that is monstrous and detestable. 

The Reign of Good Will 

Isolation, whether economic, intellectual, or religious, 
means impoverishment and endwarfment. The world has 
already become one great neighborhood, one mart. It is 
only waiting now to become one great brotherhood. Japan 
and China, America and Mexico, France and Germany, 
Chile and Tibet "belong" together as members of one body. 
To continue what Mr. W. R. Hearst calls the "patriotic 
fight for the historic policy of American independence" 
would mean faithlessness to America's own best interests. 
No nation is sufficient unto itself. No one nation is strong 
enough or good enough to dominate other nations. And 
no Ishmael-nation will any more dare oppose itself to the 
united will of those who wish to dwell together in unity. 
International-mindedness is the order of the day, the world 
has a mind for peace. Given this, the mechanism for peace 
will follow in due course. Economic pressure is one of the 
most potent of all the causes of war. This will be relieved 
when nations come to think together, to pool their intelli- 
gence in the interest of the common good. It is only good 
will that can bring economic peace and prosperity ; and the 
only guaranty of universal and abiding good will is to be 
found in religion. "In that day shall there be an altar to 
Jehovah in the midst of the land; and the Egyptians shall 
worship with the Assyrians." 40 The great rival world 
powers are reconciled at one altar — the altar of the living 
40 Isa. 19 19, 23. 



74 The Healing of the Nations 

God. As in the Angels' Song, religion comes first and is 
the basis of all the rest. "Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace to men of good will." Any conference based 
merely on economic grounds — the restriction of military 
expenditure for the relief of taxpayers, the expanding of 
foreign markets or increasing the gains of commerce — must 
inevitably fail in the establishment of permanent concord. 
History continually reminds us of the fatal looseness of a 
society that is built only upon considerations of trade or 
anything material. People held together only by com- 
mercial interests or greed of gain are apt to break loose at 
the first disaster. Good government rests ultimately upon 
the religious consciousness. 41 The house may be swept and 
garnished, well-furnished and provisioned, a veritable Palace 
of the Nations, but if it be left empty, if conscience be not 
on guard, if the Spirit of God has departed, and good will 
is no more, then the spirit of greed will return and again 
take possession and will bring with it seven other spirits 
more evil than itself. Then comes pandemonium. God alone 
has the power to say to the war-spirit in man, "Come out 
of him, and enter no more into him." 

Whatever else Arthur represents, he stands for the unify- 
ing principle in life and in the world. 

"For many a petty king ere Arthur came 
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war 
Each upon other, wasted all the land; 
And still from time to time the heathen host 
Swarm'd overseas, and harried what was left. 
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 
Wherein the beast was ever more and more, 
But man was less and less, till Arthur came." 

War means wasted lands, economic loss. Arthur bound 
the knighthood-errant of his realm together by a vow of 
loyalty and service. For a time they were "all one will" to 
follow the king, as he followed Christ; they joined their 
forces, put their shields together, and through that strength 
he drew all the petty princedoms under him in one hegemony. 
There followed a season of peace and prosperity, the lusty 

41 Note D. "Good Government," p. 238. 



The Healing of the Nations 75 

corn began to wave, the hum of industry to be heard in 
every valley, far and wide, and all the people to rejoice 
under his benignant reign. 

"He drave 
The heathen, after, slew the beast, and fell'd 
The forest, letting in the sun, and made 
Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight/' 

But sin soon entered* quickly spread, and spoiled the 
purpose of his life. Lust, jealousy, and treachery made 
a havoc of the realm, and even on Arthur fell confusion. 

"The children born of sin are sword and fire, 
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, 
The craft of kindred and the godless hosts 
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea." 42 



The Social Organism 

Whatever tends to draw the realms together in a realiza- 
tion of their essential unity, helps in the right direction. 
The recognition of our economic interdependence thus helps 
in a measure. Theories which satisfied former generations 
have become utterly inadequate to our times. Idealism in 
politics, with its self-contentment, is broken. The egoistic 
life, narrowly and fatuously bent upon its own exclusive 
good, has become less possible in the modern world, and is 
being driven to recognize that men's lives and our national 
interests are all bound together. There is no longer any 
escape from "political entanglement." No nation can live 
for itself alone. All the peoples of the world have one 
economic destiny, a community of interests ; and the nation 
that raises a Great Wall between itself and other nations 
ostracizes itself, and is in a fair way to die at last of 
inanition. A nation has no life, any more than an individual, 
except that which is social, nor can it realize its own pur- 
poses except in realizing the larger purposes of society. "If 
the ear shall say, I am not of the body; it is not therefore 
not of the body" (I Cor. 1% 15, 16). 

41 Tennyson, Guinevere. 



76 The Healing of the Nations 

Political Economy 

There is no sphere where egoistic considerations and 
selfish interests conflict more strongly than in the economic 
sphere. And it augurs well for the future that even here 
the need of cooperation as against competition is being 
increasingly felt and its benefits more largely realized. 
The necessity for the interchange of commodities, however, 
constitutes a part only of the social problem to be solved 
before there can be universal concord. Nearly a century 
ago, Carlyle showed the necessity of something more radical 
and vital than the surface treatment offered by the political 
economists who "tell us how flannel jackets are exchanged 
for pork hams." There is a deeper unity than that which 
is expressed by the interchange of goods. Industrial move- 
ments and political changes are not simply matters of ma- 
terial gain, but affect the entire welfare of the society in 
which they are set and which is more important than either. 
And it is only through the proper adjustment of the deeper 
unities, moral and spiritual, that society can be placed on 
a secure and lasting foundation. 43 

The Religious Consciousness 

Baron Goto, the mayor of Tokyo, said truly that the 
question of world-peace is fundamentally a religious one. 
To use his own words, "We must believe in God." The 
wants which man first feels are animal wants, and for the 
supplying of these he will fight, if necessary. But later, 
the hunger of his soul awakens, the satisfaction of which 
comes not by fighting, but through cooperation in the dis- 
tribution of spiritual blessings, which the more they are 
shared the more they are increased. There can be no 
selfish competition here. The Father's house is the chil- 
dren's home, where they all have "a sense of infinite de- 
pendence," and are all at one. 

Science 

In science we have another factor which has made large 
contributions in the interest of peace. Here we have one 
43 Note E. "Political Institutions," p. 238. 



The Healing of the Nations 77 

of the strongest bonds that hold together the modern in- 
tellectual world. Science knows nothing of nationalism in 
the narrow sense. The laws of physics, chemistry, and 
biology are the same in every zone; their interpretation 
will therefore eventually become the same the world over, 
as the facts of science are fixed and admit of but a single 
explanation, and all philosophies and creeds must adjust 
themselves accordingly in the end. The arts and sciences 
know no racial boundaries. With the economic interde- 
pendence resulting from commercial intercourse among 
nations has come inevitably intellectual as well as social 
interdependence. The nation hospitable to new ideas is ever 
the progressive nation. Witness the contrast in this respect 
between China and Japan, or between savage and civilized 
peoples. A nation that refuses, because of pride or preju- 
dice, to use the discoveries, inventions, or improvements of 
any nation except its own, is quietly left behind in the march 
of civilization. Isolation spells desolation. As we look 
upon the nations now occupying the world's stage of action 
we see the meaning and significance of this principle. In- 
hospitality means superstition in religion, stagnation in 
business, and inefficiency in every realm. 

One absolute condition of scientific progress is honesty 
of thought. New discoveries may disturb our preconceived 
ideas, but truth must be accepted at all costs. Death is the 
condition of a new and larger life in the intellectual and 
moral, as in the physical world. "He that loseth his life 
shall find it." Astrology may be superseded by pure astron- 
omy, and the Ptolemaic by the Copernican system, but the 
stars remain. The Greek and Hindu cosmogonies become 
obsolete in the light of cosmic evolution, but the earth abideth 
for ever. Science is intolerant of prejudice, half -belief, or 
compromise. With truth, it is "trust me not at all or 
all in all," and this demand is as imperative in political as 
in physical science. The application of this principle to 
politics should therefore naturally lead to a better under- 
standing between the nations, and a greater desire to co- 
operate for the common good. That is clearly the ten- 
dency of present-day thought, the evident trend of recent 
events. But a tendency may be thwarted in its course by 



78 The Healing of the Nations 

some malign influences, or it may not prove sufficiently 
strong to go all the way and bring to a happy consumma- 
tion. Vivien may ply her artful wiles only too successfully 
on Merlin, 

"The most famous man of all those times, 
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, 
Had built the king his havens, ships, and halls, 
Was also bard, and knew the starry heavens; 
The people call'd him Wizard." 

He then is "lost to life and use and name and fame." 

The Moral Sense 

Science gives power; and the temptation inseparable 
from power is to use it. Give a boy a jack-knife, and he 
will want to use it; nor is he always very particular what 
he uses it on. In like manner, large armies and powerful 
navies constitute a menace to the peace of the world. In 
the turrets of the "Maryland" are eight guns, each of 
which fires a shell weighing 2100 pounds an extreme dis- 
tance of over twenty miles. Guns of heavy charge and 
fearful accuracy have taken the place of the cross-bow and 
musket. There is the most urgent need therefore for a 
corresponding development of the moral sense, that will 
"turn human energies to the constructiveness of peace," 
and arms factories into harvester works. On land and sea, 
in air and in water, mechanical and chemical devices have 
been developed for destructive purposes in a manner out 
of all proportion to the growth of control and sense of 
responsibility. And increase of knowledge without moral 
safeguards means increase of sorrow. The moral sense of 
the world has not kept pace with knowledge. But if we 
are to have international peace, we must have an inter- 
national code of laws. 

A Moral Fallacy 

A nation's conscience always lags behind that of the 
individuals composing it. But a more surprising thing is 
that even among Christian people it seems to have been 



The Healing of the Nations 79 

assumed that there is one moral code for the individual 
and another for the nation ; and the acceptance of a double 
standard has caused much confusion. The Decalogue was 
not meant solely for private consumption, although Israel 
was often led into thinking so. The law that regulates 
individual life is the law for the nation, and for all the 
nations. And if the moral law which is admitted in the 
relations of man and man is not to be carried up into the 
life of nations, the relation of State and State, then there 
is no moral code which can be invoked for the regulation 
of international affairs. 

This is the momentous question that confronts us today. 
The sense of right may be strong and alert in personal 
affairs, but not in social and corporate relations. We do 
as corporations and nations what we would scorn to do as 
individuals. But nations have no more right than individ- 
uals to murder, steal, or covet. When two men come to 
blows, we feel that they are degrading themselves ; reason 
and conscience, the distinctive qualities of human beings, 
have been dethroned. And between enlightened, moral na- 
tions there is no occasion for governments to resort to force. 

An International Moral Code 

With the growing sense of our economic and intellectual 
interdependence, we need to emphasize the absoluteness of 
moral distinctions — the authoritative rightness of right, the 
absolute wrongness of wrong — and our moral interdepend- 
ence. Moral law does not change with the change of venue. 
The blessedness of the meek and of the peacemaker is inde- 
pendent of latitude or longitude, of race or color. The great 
statesmen of today are thinking and planning in terms of a 
"world conscience." And a world conscience is indeed in 
process of development, and the need of an international 
code of morals is being increasingly felt. Commerce itself 
cannot thrive without a recognition of common moral laws 
binding upon all nations. The world's hope lies in the 
growth of an international conscience. That is the goal 
to which we are moving; and it is drawing perceptibly 
nearer. Which of the nations is vying today for the dis- 



80 The Healing of the Nations 

tinction of having shocked the conscience of the world by 
starting the last great war? Not one of them is willing 
to assume the responsibility. They say protestingly, "We 
didn't know it was loaded!" Which of them is not anxious 
to justify itself before the bar of humanity for the part 
they took in it ? We see what that war did besides inflicting 
untold suffering on thousands of homes, wrecking millions 
of lives, and weakening nations for generations. It pro- 
duced chants of hate instead of hymns of love. It touched 
the very nerve of faith. It shook the pillars and founda- 
tions of civilization. It paralyzed the world with fear. 
But it also did something else. It stripped war of all glory 
and bedazzlement. It gave the lie to Nietzschism. It con- 
demned selfishness as the supreme curse of the earth. It 
quickened the moral sense of the world. Opportunism, 
chauvinism, treachery, and secret diplomacy have grown 
more than ever repellent. Moral rights are replacing 
"scientific frontiers." An international court of justice has 
become the popular demand of the day. 

In times past, both among nations and individuals, the 
economic motive has been dominant. Seldom in any nation 
have moral considerations proved strong enough to prevent 
war when economic interests demanded aggression. The 
scientific spirit will lead to a clearer understanding of world 
conditions and to a recognition of the need for cooperation. 
A quickened moral sense, an enlightened conscience, will 
dictate a new standard of life, a higher law of morality. 
But unless religion furnish a new moral dynamic, the new 
law will become a dead letter. Both the scientific spirit and 
our moral convictions need to be energized by a spiritual 
motive which only religion can supply. And "religion," in 
the words of Kant, "is the recognition of our duties as Divine 
commandments" (although Kant erred in making the feel- 
ing of obligation the whole of the moral life). The highest 
morality waits upon the sanctions and inspirations of a 
great religious faith, which touches the springs of life and 
controls the inmost thoughts and intents of the heart. 



The Healing of the Nations 81 

Surface Christianity 

We have seen that morality has no sanctions save in the 
inherently religious nature of man. 44 The ancient pagan 
morality — mores — simply meant the observance of the cus- 
toms, traditions, and usages of society. And that is still 
the popular conception of morality. A man who is free 
from vice, true to his word, pays his debts, never swears, 
says "Good morning' 9 to his neighbors, passes for a moral 
man. That conception satisfied the Greeks and Romans and 
Pharisees, but falls far short of the Christian idea. Be- 
tween morals and morality there is a very radical difference. 
The moral man generally approves of the whole Ten Com- 
mandments, avoids all scrapes, has no faults worth naming. 
He insists on his rights ; thinks people are foolish to do 
anything that needs forgiveness. He defies the law by 
keeping it. He fancies he has said his prayers when he calls 
church people "fanatics," and given in the collection when 
he has paid his taxes. He may even go to church himself, 
for, say what you will, the church is an asset in any com- 
munity. The amiable young man in the Bible story claimed 
that he had "kept all of the commandments from his youth 
up." He had not kept one of them, save in the poverty of 
the letter. Jesus said he lacked "one thing" ; but that one 
thing was everything. He lacked ideals. His little world 
had no sky; his life no outlook upon the infinite. He loved 
"things," and lived for self. Some good he doubtless did ; 
some virtues he cultivated. But Jesus said, "Be ye perfect." 
We must not pick and choose among the moralities. The 
Gentiles do that. "Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly 
Father is perfect." The moral ideal belongs to the realm 
of the infinite, and is therefore in its very nature progres- 
sive. Goodness consists not in the observance of customs 
or ritual but in the imitation of God, in the continued, un- 
ceasing effort to become better. Morals are simply surface 
Christianity, the veneer of civilization; morality is the life 
of God in the heart of man. Ethics therefore cannot be 
static, but must be dynamic, and rise higher with every new 
development of society. 

44 See p. 30. 



82 The Healing of the Nations 

"Follow you the star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine, 
Forward, till you see the highest human nature is divine/' 45 

The Christian Ethic 

The three dominant notes of Christian ethics are, its 
absoluteness, its inwardness, and its universality. As long 
as nations have different moral codes, — some of them based 
on ignorance, social convenience, or political expediency, 
wars will continue. It is only in the application of the ethic 
of Jesus to economic problems and political situations that 
peace will be found. Man's ethical nature is deep, and its 
possibilities infinite; and in the deeper things of life and 
the spirit we are all one. Non-Christian nations are re- 
sponding wonderfully to Christian ideals. "Society is com- 
plex, and so far from being an external concatenation of 
independent individualities, its filaments are organic and its 
roots penetrate to the inner soul of all its members. God is 
immanent in the world." 46 Deep in men's hearts is the 
question of questions, man's relation to God. The religious 
consciousness is universal, and finds varied expression ac- 
cording to the degree of enlightenment and culture. It is 
a true saying that when the first missionaries land on any 
shore they find that Christ was already there. The true 
light — the Divine Logos — has its witness in every heart. 
And as the light grows, men learn that life means more 
than appetite, passion, or pleasure, and that duty is the 
"stern daughter of the voice of God." The sanctions of 
duty shrink unless we conceive of the categorical impera- 
tive "ought" as the expression of a loving, intelligent will 
outside of ourselves and yet immanent in us. Faith in God, 
when real and vital, must determine the whole bent of mind, 
must tone and color the entire activity. Here, then, in the 
universal consciousness of God we have the promise and 
pledge of the final conscious unity of the human race. 

"All thoughts that mould the age begin 
Deep down within the primitive soul." 47 

45 Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, 

46 Henry Jones, Idealism as a Practical Creed, p. 209. 

47 Lowell, An Incident in a Railroad Car. 



The Healing of the Nations 83 

While, however, it is the true God who reveals himself 
among all nations, 48 man's apprehension of God at different 
stages of his own development not only varies but is liable 
to gross misconception. 

The coming together of the adherents of the Christian 
and ethnic religions around one table for the discussion of 
world problems was in itself significant of the spirit of the 
new age. There are great ideals which are common to all 
great religions. Christianity embodies them all, without 
any admixture of error such as they all contain, and it also 
supplies the dynamic power which is wanting in all other 
religions. Hence the supreme opportunity which now pre- 
sents itself to Christian countries of impressing their ideals 
upon the mind and heart and conscience of the world; of 
setting up an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land; 
of demonstrating the unity of our complex modern civiliza- 
tion, the insanity of a narrow, mercenary, belligerent spirit, 
and the glory of service in the remaking of a shattered 
world order. Oriental leaders are realizing the fact that 
their systems of morals are not equal to the strain involved 
in the new industrial civilization. Dr. H. E. Fosdick says 
that "the East is borrowing everything that it can get from 
the West ; and, whether it wants to or not, slowly but surely 
it is borrowing Christianity." More and more, they are 
entertaining Christian ideals unawares. And Christian na- 
tions also are realizing as never before that Christianity 
holds the secret of life both for the individual and the State, 
and the absolute need for the uncompromising application of 
Christian ethics to all human affairs as the world's only 
hope. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and thy neighbor as thyself." Christianity, in its broader 
sense, as a religion of the spirit, is the only panacea for the 
world's ills, and is more than all-sufficient. And without the 
redemptive forces at work which brought Christ to earth, 
peace is no peace, and all preaching of it is vain. We must 
return to the dominant uniting force of a mighty love and 
the eternal spirit of sacrifice. 49 

The ethic of Jesus is absolute, authoritative, inhering in 

^Acts 10 35; U 17; 17 27. 
49 Heb. 9 14. 



84 The Healing of the Nations 

the very nature of things, admitting of no compromise or 
subterfuge or temporizing. It is inward and vital, a thing 
of the spirit, not of the letter. It is not a ritual, but a life. 
It does not promulgate commandments and edicts ; it in- 
stigates motive and accentuates principle. I have said of 
our own army engaged in the last war that its strength 
was within itself, and consisted not in numbers, or muni- 
tions of war, or any outward command, but in its conscious- 
ness of right, of the justice of its cause, even as of Sir 
Galahad it was said that 

"His strength was as the strength of ten, 
Because his heart was pure." 

It is universal, both in its demand and in its appeal. In 
it, as a reflex of the will of God, we have the only available 
power for the reconstruction of a war-torn, fear-stricken 
world, and the preservation of the peace of mankind. Its 
adoption would provide the fundamental basis for a world- 
wide political unit, one great family of all the nations. 
And with the coming of the new world-life the necessity of 
a universal standard of ethics is beginning to be felt. 

The trouble with nominally Christian nations is that while 
their ideals have been professedly Christian they were quite 
devoid of ethical content. They have built churches in the 
name of the crucified Christ, while at the same time they 
have been preparing for mutual destruction, thus trying to 
build a Christian civilization upon an un-Christian founda- 
tion, the assumption that might makes right. Germany, 
France, England, Austria, Russia, have all been envious of 
one another's prosperity, coveted one another's possessions, 
misjudged one another's motives, and plotted against one 
another's advancement. Philosophers like Nietzsche and 
Eucken and Haeckel, historians like Treitschke and Har- 
nack, theologians like Strauss and Gregory, soldiers like Von 
Bernhardi and Frobenius — Christian and non-Christian — 
have joined in proclaiming the divinity of physical force. 

From this doctrine there has come about a strong 
revulsion. We see that ideas, not brute force, rule the 
world. 



The Healing of the Nations 85 

"Large elements in order brought, 

And tracts of calm from tempest made, 
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd 
In vassal tides that follow'd thought" 50 

The organized use of force will continue as long as it 
may be necessary to prevent its indiscriminate use by lawless 
individuals and unscrupulous nations. As Admiral Mahan 
says, "The function of force is to give moral ideas a chance 
to work." But the public opinion of mankind today is 
against war; and yet there is much bitterness, hatred, and 
suspicion, and quick mines may explode at any time, unless 
spiritual forces are set at work to prevent it. "God be 
merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine 
upon us ; that thy way may be known upon earth, thy 
saving health among all nations" (Ps. 67 1, 2 A.V.). 

One Father 

The world's one need is the reassertion and exemplifica- 
tion of Christian principles by Christian peoples to over- 
come the racial, national, and class strife in it. "Have we 
not all one father? hath not one God created us? Why do 
we deal treacherously every man against his brother?" 51 
It is a Christian doctrine that God "hath made of one every 
nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." 52 The 
God of humanity has no pampered children, no favorite 
Josephs, on His hearth. 53 "Are ye not as the children of 
the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith Jehovah. 
Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and 
the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?" 54 
Israel and Judah would be judged for their sins by the same 
moral law by which God judged other nations, with the 
difference that the greater light which they had enjoyed 
and the professions they had made only aggravated their 
crime and increased their punishment. In a Christian world 

60 In Memoriarrij 112. 

B1 Mai. 8 10. 

62 Note F. "Races," p. 238. 

88 Cf. Amos 1; 8. 

M Amos 9 7. 



86 The Healing of the Nations 

"there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uneir- 
cumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman." 55 
The idea of racial or national superiority is alien to the 
gospel. Christ belongs in all that He is to all men. The 
attempt to foster racial or national or class prejudice is 
foreign to the spirit of Christ. 

Patriotism and Humanity 

It may be true that Western nations cannot afford to 
alienate each other in view of the growing power and self- 
consciousness of oriental races. The "Yellow Peril" may 
not be wholly fictitious or imaginary. For many centuries 
the white race has been supreme in power. That supremacy 
today is threatened. Through the World War the weapons 
of war have been given into the hands of the dark-skinned 
races, who far outnumber the white. If therefore the Chris- 
tian peoples continue to pour the evils of their civilization 
upon the barbarian, and unless trust and justice and love 
supplant suspicion, wrong, and hatred, then, as God liveth, 
our modern delinquent civilization will bring upon itself a 
worse judgment than that which brought low the Christian 
Empire of Europe before the savage barbarians of the 
North. 

Even as precautionary measures it is best "to do justly, 
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." But 
above all, the application of the Christian ethic — the spirit 
of justice and the law of love — will link the scattered 
nations together in one living organism, with every mem- 
ber in the corporate body functioning and contributing to 
the good of the whole. Between nationality and humanity 
there is no necessary antagonism. "Nationality and hu- 
manity are equally sacred," Mazzini said. "To forget hu- 
manity is to suppress the aim of our labors ; to cancel the 
nation is to suppress the instrument by which to achieve 
the aim." The logical consequence of the unity of nature 
in the human race is that of a common aim, a collective 
solidarity, a common effort and a common movement, with 
sympathy and alliance as its result. As members of the 

66 Col. 8 11. 



The Healing of the Nations 87 

great human family, sharing the life of all, it is incumbent 
upon all nations to share in the service and communicate 
something of their life to all. A neutral, passive, selfish 
part is unworthy of a great people. Hence the general sat- 
isfaction felt among all the better elements throughout the 
world when at last the United States took her rightful 
place among the nations at the Washington council. Fifty 
nations were already banded together in the desire and 
purpose to put an end to war. America was the only 
obstacle to world union. Let it be granted that there was 
some measure of reason in her aloofness. But let it also be 
henceforth remembered "that the charter of a nation's 
liberties is an article of the charter of humanity, and that 
they alone deserve that charter who are ready to conquer 
or die for all humanity." 56 

Pseudo-Patriotism 

There is a spurious nationalism, a petty, pusillanimous 
patriotism that is full of peril. "What is patriotism?" 
asked a Washington school-teacher during the Spanish- 
American War. "Killing Spaniards," was the reply. 57 
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney said, in 1857, "They (the 
blacks) have no rights which the white man is bound to 
respect." 58 "Our country ! In her intercourse with foreign 
nations may she be always in the right; but our country, 
right or wrong," said Stephen Decatur. 59 That is not na- 
tionalism : that is diabolism. But that is too often the kind 
of perverted patriotism that is taught in our schools, en- 
couraged by a sensational press, and glorified in moving 
pictures. There is a true and pure patriotism that con- 
tributes to, and rejoices in, the material well-being, moral 
greatness, and spiritual influence of one's own country, — 
a beautiful, strong, divine sentiment. It finds its best ex- 
pression in the desire and effort to carry forward the best 
traditions of one's own nation and to enhance its prestige. 
It breathes in the Hebrew exile's plaint, "By the rivers of 

M Mazzini, Faith and the Future. 

57 Fifth Congress: National Federation of Religious Liberals (Report). 

58 The Dred Scott Case (Howard Rep. 19, p. 407). 
** Toast given at Norfolk, April, 1816. 



88 The Healing of the Nations 

Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remem- 
bered Zion ;" and in the Savior's lamentation over Jerusalem, 
when His tears fell and His heart broke as He beheld the city. 
It constituted the very strength of the three-fold temptation 
which assailed Him at the beginning of His public ministry — 
the temptation to sink the Saviour in the patriot. The 
divinity of such a passion needs no argument, calls for no 
apology. 

There is a degenerate type of patriotism which affects un- 
concern for all the rest of the world; and there is also 
a pseudo-philanthropy which affects an equal and impartial 
interest in, and affection for, everybody. The world has 
little regard for either. The maudlin "I-love-everybody" 
sentimentalism that is spread over so vast and vague an area, 
and is so attenuated as to have no particular application, 
local habitation, or even a proper name, is very far removed 
indeed from that true philanthropy which is born of patriot- 
ism, and which leads to the appreciation of the good in all 
nations. Patriotism means a grateful, appreciative, but 
not selfish love of one's own people. "Above all nations 
is humanity," as Plato said. Philanthropy means the love 
of all men — even of our supposed enemies — not as an idle 
sentiment, but as an active principle. 

National Autonomy 

Every nation must be free to live its own life, — to develop 
and realize itself along the lines of its own individuality. 
The only limit to this freedom is that it shall not impair the 
like freedom of others. Political liberty for the State means 
freedom from the dictation of arbitrary authority, or the 
sway of other nations by force, and the right to share in 
the making of international laws. 60 The enlightened con- 
science of the world will be for war rather than for a peace 
which sacrifices freedom. Neither the world, the State, 
nor the individual can "endure permanently half slave and 
half free." The only hope for world peace is in the recog- 
nition of the independence and self-determination of nation- 
alities, whether great or small. The attempt to coerce the 

m See Ramsay Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism. 



The Healing of the Nations 89 

soul of Armenia is an object-lesson to the world. Japan has 
shown a wonderful capacity to assimilate the ways of the 
Western nations without change in what is the essence of 
Japan. "Jewish history," Rabbi Blau says, "is one long 
attempt — non-combative, non-resistant — at having the world 
accept Jewish individuality. . . . This group-pride, this 
heroic self-assertion, is strongly developed in the Jewish 
people. It has been the one sustaining force in its precari- 
ous existence." Difference in the course of development 
should not diminish the admiration which different nations 
feel for one another. For as "all the members of the body 
have not the same office," so has every nation its own peculiar 
gift to contribute and service to render to the world. 
In the best regulated world each race and nation will still 
create its own culture, its own psychology, its own specific 
moral discipline. What the world needs is individuality in 
cooperation. 

So long as nations regard one another as being in each 
other's way, there will be trouble. And so long as the 
strong nation thinks that its superior strength constitutes 
its right to dominate, there will be war. But "the race is 
not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." God is 
not always on the side of the strongest battalions, as Na- 
poleon vainly thought. The resources of civilization are 
not the strongest forces in the universe. Napoleon's own 
history is a good illustration of that. So is the history of 
the Spanish Armada, and a hundred others. 

The Law of Survival 

"Though in the struggle between individuals of the same 
kind the strong often succeed while the wxak perish, yet in the 
long course of time, and in the general trend of evolution, this 
is not true; the weak that were adapted to rapid change have 
often actually replaced the strong but more sluggish. It is 
the nervous system, the qualities of the mind, memory, intelli- 
gence, judgment, which have been selected. 'Might is right' is 
not in reality the law of evolution. It is intelligence and, in the 
later stages, foresight and mutual helpfulness which have given 
survival. 

"The struggle of man with man, of race with race, of country 



90 The Healing of the Nations 

with country, does not lead the human species onward and up- 
ward. It is in reality man's struggle with the environment which 
carries him on always to a larger life. Just in proportion as he 
succeeds and struggles he wins his freedom; he becomes a man, 
whose spirit cannot be daunted. The spirit within him becomes 
free. It is victory over our own flesh which is desirable, not 
over our fellow men. That is the lesson of evolution." 61 

As with the individual, so with the nation. "Blessed are the 
meek: for they shall inherit the earth." 



The Militarist Fallacy 

"War," says Von Bernhardi, "is a good thing in itself. 
All advance is founded upon struggle." That is now seen 
in the light of history and science to have been a popular 
fallacy, and his own country has afforded the latest illus- 
tration of it. Biology is demonstrating more and more 
clearly the truth that cooperation and not combat is the 
primary law of life. Every step in the evolution of life, 
from monera to men, from almost imperceptible and struc- 
tureless nuclei of protoplasm to the most complex animal 
and human societies, is the result of cooperation on the 
part of smaller units of matter and energy to form larger 
units. The law of survival is diametrically opposed to 
the law of the jungle — "the longest paw, the strongest 
jaw." Selfishness destroyed the megatherium and the 
mastodon. It is only as individuals, whether they be cells 
or plants or insects or animals or human beings, have learned 
to live together, and work together, that they have proved 
their right to survive. They have become most efficient 
as they became most serviceable. Destructive competition 
has played an inconstant, subsidiary role, along with other 
forces, in the primary stages of evolution. But with ad- 
vancing knowledge it has been found that successful struggle 
for existence must be cooperative. The law of human broth- 
erhood — "to consider one another, to provoke unto love and 
good works" — is that which builds up the family, the tribe, 
the nation, and is the only guarantee of perpetuity and 
world-union. 

61 Albert P. Mathews, Yale Review, January, 1922, pp. 351, 352. 



The Healing of the Nations 91 

The Beatitudes 

It is not only in the interchange of commodities 
and general economic gains that the benefits of cooperation 
are seen. It brings about intercourse and interchanges of 
another kind, and fosters a sense of mutual responsibility 
in many ways. It humanizes commerce and communicates 
social and spiritual as well as political impulses from na- 
tion to nation. The ten-year naval holiday has suggested 
to European statesmen the idea of a ten-year military 
truce, with partial land disarmament. Such intercourse 
inspires a generous rivalry in well-doing, a healthy ambition 
to lead in useful production, in the arts, in scientific and 
literary attainments, and in morals. It justifies the wisdom 
of the Beatitudes. It exalts the Golden Rule. It promotes 
good will. It makes the path of duty a path of peace and 
a way of pleasantness. Confidence begets confidence, and 
a passion for our neighbor's happiness adds to our own. 

It was an interesting moment 

"When first the question rose 
About the founding of a Table Round, 
That was to be, for love of God and men 
And noble deeds, the flowers of all the world. 
And each incited each to noble deeds. " 62 



The Wealth of Nations 

In the modern world there is less chance than ever for 
the nation whose ideals are exclusive and whose spirit is 
selfish. The greatness of a nation is determined by its 
service to the world ; nor is that service measured by 
merely material standards. "A nation's uses are immortal," 
even as a nation's real wealth is chiefly spiritual. There 
is no mistake more fundamental than to conceive of material 
prosperity as the great end of the State, or to ignore the 
law of justice, love, and service in the pursuit and develop- 
ment of its interests. With a ring of irony in his voice, a 
great teacher once spoke of a time to come when a man 
02 Merlin and Vivien. 



92 The Healing of the Nations 

would be "more rare (more precious) than fine gold, even 
a man than the pure gold of Ophir." 63 A nation's life, like 
that of the individuals composing it, "consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things that it possesseth," 64 but rather 
in the things — the ideals and passions — by which it is pos- 
sessed. Music, art, science, literature, and religion — is 
there anything else? — are the product and the possession 
of the entire human race, and are the true measure of a 
nation's greatness. Governments and political bodies have 
vitality only as they meet the practical needs of life and 
minister to its moral health. The motive-power of the 
highest development is to be found in ethical ideas — in recti- 
tude, honor, love, service — and the greatest nation will be 
the servant of all. Selfish competition repels and antag- 
onizes ; unselfish service forms a sacramental bond. 

"I likewise thought perhaps, 
That service done so graciously would bind 
The two together; fain I would the two 
Should love each other." 65 

Service is the standard of life. The highest incentive 
to service is love; the truest evidence of love is service 
(John 21 15-17). And love is, too, in turn, of service the 
richest reward (John 1£ 21). 

The Ideal Nation 

The ideal nation is called "the servant of Jehovah," whose 
high mission it was to turn the combative energies of men 
from blood-stained battlefields to the war with ignorance 
and sin and poverty and disease and death, and to the win- 
ning of all the nations into the kingdom of God. Israel 
of the Old Testament and the Church of the New, were 
called and commissioned to lead the nations in the worship 
of God and in the service of man, for the two are inseparable 
(Cf. Isa. 4,9 6 and Acts IS 47). "Behold, My servant, whom 
I uphold; My chosen, in whom My soul delighteth: I have 
put My spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the 

68 Isa. 13 12. 

64 Luke n 15. 

65 Oeramt and Enid. 



The Healing of the Nations 93 

nations. . . . He shall make the right to go forth accord- 
ing to the truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged, till 
he have set the right in the earth; and for his teaching the 
Isles are waiting" (Isa. Jf2 1-4). Israel's sense of duty to 
all humanity was just the conscience of God's universal 
sovereignty. Israel had the conviction of God's claim over 
all men and the vision of His universal rule, while as yet 
she lacked in the sense and fulfilment of her own duty to 
all mankind. 

The Religion of Service 

There are those who seem to think that the service of 
man is all the religion that is necessary, — that the springs 
of all goodness and the impulse to all service are within 
humanity itself. History is the best answer to that. When 
Damascus cuts itself off from the snow of Lebanon and the 
cold waters of el-Barada, and trusts to its own broken 
cisterns, its fertile plain and its radiant gardens and 
orchards will soon wither and become a perpetual hissing. 
Every passer-by will shake his head. The Comtist "Hu- 
manity" "that opposeth and exalteth itself against all that 
is called God or that is worshipped ; so that he sitteth in 
the temple of God, setting himself forth as God," saying, 
"I am, and there is none else beside me," is destined to share 
the tragic fate of Dagon. 66 Nothing but the Infinite can 
fulfil our infinite needs. No ship can sail by the light of 
its own lamps, alone; and humanity without God is helpless. 

That the best service of God is to be found in the service 
of man is one of those half-truths which is as dangerous 
as it is fascinating. It owes its origin partly to a mis- 
interpretation of certain biblical passages, such as Isa. 
58, Jer. 7 1-7, 22, Matth. £5 31-46, James 1 27— where 
"religion" is the equivalent of "ritual" and 1 John 3 17; 
]± 20. Some Christian poets also seem to have unwittingly 
committed themselves to the same mistaken idea, as e. g., 

"He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small." 

"Let thy good deeds be thy prayer to thy God." 

M 2 Thess. 2 4; Isa. Jft 8, 10; 1 Sam. 5 1-5. 



94 The Healing of the Nations 

We find, however, that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Matthew, 
James, and John were only protesting against the type of 
worship that is divorced from service, the formal religion 
which exhausts itself in barren expressions of devotion and 
praise, even as Jesus also often protested (Matth. 7 21; 
23 14, 23). The love and service of man are the true flower 
of the religious life, but they must have their roots in the 
love of God. "We love, because he first loved us." There 
we have the one unfailing source and inspiration of universal 
service. Any other conception of religion would lead to 
the arbitrary elimination of the weaker and poorer ele- 
ments in society, as of no use to the commonwealth as a 
whole. We should soon have a society without pity or 
patience. Even Plato's ideal city did not rise above that. 
"The offspring of the inferior parents, or of the better 
when they chance to be deformed, the proper officers will 
conceal in some mysterious, unknown place." 67 But Jesus 
said, "It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, 
that one of these little ones should perish," whether they be 
deformed infants, undeveloped adults, or just beginners in 
the Christian life. 

The Christian Dynamic 

To love and serve these is our high privilege, and for 
such service a godless humanism and a Christless socialism 
are alike inadequate. By its divinization of man and its 
humanization of God, Christianity supplies the necessary 
dynamic. The Church of God, whose "priests are all God's 
faithful sons," is the power-house of all true philanthropy, 
for Christianity effects a complete vital transformation of 
all our motives and of all our standards of values. Chris- 
tian habits, customs, and institutions may survive the loss 
of faith and of the Christian motive for a time. Even a 
locomotive will run some distance by its own momentum 
after the steam is shut off. The effect of religious train- 
ing and tradition and the power of environment may not 
be obliterated immediately. But to depart from God, to 
deny the Christian faith, is to cut ourselves off from the 

67 Plato, The Ideal State. 



The Healing of the Nations 95 

base of supplies. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of 
itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except 
ye abide in me. ... If a man abide not in me, he is cast 
forth as a branch, and is withered." What sustained 
Christ himself in His life of service and self-sacrifice was 
the thought that He was doing His Father's will. Social 
morality, political liberty, and philanthropic passion, all 
have their roots in religion, in man's responsibility to God 
and in God's love for man. After all, the interests of the 
inner life belong to all of us, and it is only through the 
safeguarding of these that competition, strife, and war will 
give place to lo\e, joy, and peace, which are the fruit of 
the Spirit. Truth, justice, sympathy, and good will are 
more than simply expedient courses of action. They inhere 
in the very nature of God, and are therefore absolute and 
immutable conditions of well-being. 

The "Balance of Power" Policy 

The times call for the leadership of men of heroic spiritual 
vision, who will instruct the world in the business of capi- 
talizing the positive and constructive forces in human rela- 
tionships, rather than continue to capitalize envy, sus- 
picion, and a s^iort-sighted policy of self-interest, — the nega- 
tive, destructive forces which mean perpetual conflict and 
war. We need to learn that unarmed confidence, based on 
the innate morality of human nature, rooted in God, is 
mightier than armed distrust. All other schemes and policies 
yet tried have failed in establishing peace among the nations. 
The attempt to maintain peace through a balance of power 
and political alliances has almost always led to worse con- 
fusion and to war. All the ancient empires tried it — Egypt, 
Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Media, Persia, Lydia, Carthage, 
Phenicia, Greece, and Rome — and disappeared one after 
another. This was the policy of Europe before the war, 
the policy of two armed camps, "proof positive," one writer 
said, "that Europe had never accepted Christianity as its 
religion." Such a situation was charged with TNT ele- 
ments: hence the conflagration of 1914. The "balance of 
power" policy prevented the great European powers from 



96 The Healing of the Nations 

fulfilling their solemn pledge under the treaty of Berlin to 
see that the Christian populations of Macedonia and Thrace 
were treated with justice. They were weakened morally 
through jealousies and mutual fear, in spite and because 
of their great armaments. All this failure has often been 
charged against Christianity ; but as G. K. Chesterton says, 
"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it 
has been found difficult and not tried." This artificial 
balance mechanism of military power, which has been thought 
indispensable in human affairs, must pass away when men 
come to live by understanding rather than by passion. If 
great armies and navies have any use at all, it is for 
the restraining of tyrants, the curbing of bandit nations, 
the safeguarding of human values, the protection of the 
helpless, and not for providing a livelihood for able-bodied 
men who pass the time in idly singing, "We are sitting, with 
our knitting, on the twelve inch guns !" 

The world seems now in a mood to try alliances based 
on the will to unity and peace rather than military alliances 
for purposes of war. G. Bernard Shaw quotes the Irish 
editor, George Russell, as saying that "the only person 
who comes out of the Great War with any intellectual 
credit is Jesus Christ," inasmuch as all the combatants would 
have been much "better off" if they had not resisted the 
invader or engaged in the war. And Shaw goes on to ask, 
"What is the use of victories that land you in all the 
destitution of defeat?" We might, however, remind Mr. 
Shaw that spiritual destitution, moral bankruptcy, and the 
failure to stand up for the inalienable rights of man would 
be much worse than any material loss or physical suffering. 
It was said of Pythagoras of Rhegium that he could ex- 
press, by means of his statues, physical pain, but not moral 
grief. The expression of moral character, however, is of 
greater consequence than the cost in money or the loss in 
lives. Who would want to live in a world without a con- 
science? Or what should it profit a nation to gain the 
whole world and lose its own soul? 

What the world needs is a change of heart, — a change of 
motives and passions as well as of mental habits and politi- 
cal traditions. 



The Healing of the Nations 97 

"The difference between barbarism and civilization is a differ- 
ence in the spiritual element. Even when civilization gets to a 
certain point, as we have it now, it can remain stedfast only as 
we pour religion into it. Civilization makes no progress until 
spirituality makes a jump, and then civilization moves to catch 
up. That is what the labor situation is waiting to do. When 
there is an increase of spirituality among all groups, then there 
will be another great development in the labor movement, but 
not until then. No reforms can be forced through and be 
permanent. We can develop only as we cooperate with the 
Spirit of God." 68 

A New Humanity 

The root evil of all the trouble in high classes and in low, 
that threatens governments and endangers democracy itself, 
is the uncured selfishness of men. Christ is the creator of 
a new humanity, and in the rebirth of the human race, the 
passing out of selfishness into love, out of social strife into 
social service, is the only hope of the world. Mankind, ever 
changing its habits and not its passions ; civilization, ever 
changing its form and not its nature, will never succeed 
in realizing its own best ideals. All history emphasizes the 
absolute imperativeness of a change in the mind of the 
world (the Synoptic "repentance" — metdnoia — the Johan- 
nine "new birth"), manifesting itself in a will to peace and to 
unity no less than to power. For the greater good of the 
world, and for putting a final end to war, there must come 
not only a reassessment of political methods and institu- 
tions, — politics is not enough, and "patriotism," said Edith 
Cavell, "is not enough" — but there must also come a revo- 
lution in that deeper region where dwell the passions and 
sentiments which control the world. 69 

Christ's greatest contribution to human thought was 
the revelation of the Fatherhood of God. His most revolu- 
tionary doctrine, the brotherhood of man, was the natural 
corollary of this. Man is not the enemy of man. Sus- 
picion and retaliation are not the laws of life. "All ye are 
brethren," "World brotherhood is the logical outcome of 
the Saviourhood of Jesus Christ," and on no other founda- 

68 Roger W. Babson, Religion and Business. 
89 James S U-4 12. 



98 The Healing of the Nations 

tion can we hope to build a new and permanent international 
order. To think that it can be established by force of arms 
or considerations of political expediency would be to repu- 
diate the whole Christian revelation of God, and every spiri- 
tual interpretation of life. There is good prospect today of 
a new fraternity of nations based on righteousness and a 
deeper comprehension of the teachings of Christ. M. 
Viviani, the Frenchman, said it was moral force that was 
needed to make the Washington Conference a success. The 
sense of this is beginning to penetrate the mind even of 
those who do not accept the Christian view of the world. 
Italian thinkers, such as Prezzolini and Jahier, emphasize 
the need of a religious movement, as distinguished from 
political efforts, for a better world. 

Christian influence is largely responsible for the progress 
made at the Conference. Dr. Sao K. A. Sze, Chinese Min- 
ister to the United States, said, "The churches have done 
a great deal for China and the Chinese people. Of the three 
principal delegates sent to the Washington Conference, Dr. 
Wang, who is a Christian, Dr. Koo, and myself have at- 
tended St. John's College at Shanghai, an institution main- 
tained and managed by American missionaries." Prince 
Tokugawa, the most influential member of the Japanese 
Delegation at Washington, has often referred to the prayer 
meeting held by the Congregational women of Brookline, 
Mass., in 1829, when the first money was raised for the 
American Board for work in his country, as a factor in 
bringing Japan to her present world position. "The task 
of the Conference," he said, "is religious. I think I can 
say this without irreverence, because the Conference is 
organized on an exalted plane, and is animated with high 
ideals." Viscount Okabe, ex-Minister of Education, Vis- 
count Torii, Major General Kajizuka, and a large number 
of Government officials, professors, and professional men 
are members of Christian Churches in Japan. Recent events 
which have brought China and Japan and other countries 
of the East into close relations with the Christian Powers 
have afforded the latter an unprecedented opportunity of 
exemplifying and adorning the doctrines which they profess. 
The same may be said of the late division of much of 



The Healing of the Nations 99 

Africa and Asia among the same powers. It is a great 
opportunity for surely though insensibly influencing and 
moulding the thought of the world. Herr Hade, of Ger- 
many, has directed attention to the relation of the mis- 
sionary spirit to international amity. Humanitarian prin- 
ciples are first practically realized in carrying the gospel 
of love and brotherhood to men of every tribe and nation, 
and Christian principle is thus prevented from evaporating 
into mere sentiment. Christian forces and influences are at 
work in a way that warrants our faith that some day 
Christian principles will be universally accepted. And the 
evangelization of the world means the internationalization 
and unity of the world. It is our belief that the religious 
dynamic now at work in human society will in the long run 
not only rejuvenate Christianity, but secure the unification 
of the nations of the earth on a spiritual basis. Nothing 
less and nothing else than this will stop war. 

The Outlawry of War 

While the failure of the Washington Conference to deal 
with chemical means of warfare or even to limit submarine 
building is to be regretted, it has become perfectly evident 
that to limit armaments and to make rules for the control 
of dastardly weapons will not secure peace, and that as Mr. 
Hughes said, the only way to end war is to end it. In the 
rush and emergency of war, "gentlemen's agreements" on 
the conduct of organized murder are very apt to be for- 
gotten. In a civilized world, war should be declared an 
outlaw. It is only a conviction of its sinfulness that can 
bring it to a perpetual end. Otherwise imperial Powers 
will still strive ruthlessly for mastery; the capitalists and 
the proletariat will still marshal their forces in a merciless 
struggle. Whatever can be used for destruction will be so 
used by the least scrupulous power, and that will inevitably 
lead to retaliation. 

It is a strange reflection on modern civilization that war 
between nations has always been, and is now, perfectly legal. 
The Kaiser was violating no recognized law by declaring 
war in 1914. He could only be indicted for "illegal acts" 



100 The Healing of the Nations 

committed within the war. Public opinion might declare a 
war to be unjust or lawless, but there would be no authori- 
tative law court before which the makers of war would have 
to answer for it. And yet in our closely interdependent 
present-day civilization, with its highly developed instru- 
ments of destruction, the appeal to force jeopardizes the 
very life of that civilization. We have just learned that, 
no matter who wins, in war everybody loses. It has be- 
come intolerable and unthinkable, and should be forever 
outlawed. Ten millions of the world's young men slain in 
the last war; thirty millions of non-combatants killed by 
hunger, famine, and disease; $186,000,000,000 spent on the 
awful carnage ! And who can doubt that the next war, if it 
ever happened, would be even worse than any yet seen? 
"The issue before the world is Utopia or Hell." If any 
scheme can be advanced that will in any degree tend toward 
the elimination of this wholesale slaughter, then surely it 
follows that the cooperation of Christian nations, though 
it means some sacrifice of prejudice and feeling — "even that 
most difficult sacrifice, the sacrifice of party spirit" 70 — 
may fairly be asked for its support. In the last resort the 
issue rests with the people. World peace will not be estab- 
lished by governments. Just as soon as the great mass of 
people get sufficiently ashamed of war, disgusted with war, 
determined not to go to war, then our practical statesmen 
will find another way of settling international difficulties. 
And in case of any reluctance or temporizing, they can be 
told, "You can be excused. You are no longer our repre- 
sentatives." 

It is a pleasing and hopeful sign, therefore, that there 
has been established "An American Committee for the Out- 
lawry of War," of which a Chicago lawyer, Mr. Salmon O. 
Levinson, is the chairman. Its object is to advocate an 
orderly legal procedure by which the nations can settle their 
disputes, and to make war between nations a public crime 
under an international code of law. The plan itself was 
drawn up by Mr. Levinson in collaboration with the late 
Senator Knox, former Secretary of State, and its essence 

70 T. H. Green, Address to the Wesleyan Literary Society of Oxford 
(1882). 



The Healing of the Nations 101 

was incorporated in a constructive program of peace formu- 
lated in 1919. It provides for the codification of interna- 
tional law by a conference which will declare war a public 
crime, and create an international court with affirmative 
jurisdiction to whose judgments nations will submit, as the 
States of our Union now submit to the decisions of the 
Supreme Court. Armaments shall be reduced to the lowest 
point consistent with domestic safety and international re- 
quirements, and yearly reports thereon shall be verified by 
authorized committees. The doctrines of military necessity, 
retaliation, and reprisal shall be eliminated. The interna- 
tional court must be given adequate power to enforce its 
judgments against recalcitrant nations. Neither the League 
of Nations nor any other association of nations can effec- 
tively meet the situation without such a codification and 
such a court. "Rules of humanized warfare" became "scraps 
of paper" on both sides in the late war. The duty of the 
world is to make war illegal, to make it disgraceful, to un- 
mask it, and to declare it in law what it is in fact, — the 
most heinous sin against God, the most colossal crime against 
humanity. 

The Moral Element in War 

Until the sinfulness, the criminality of war as organized 
murder has sunk into the moral consciousness of the world, 
nothing can stop it. For until then, wars will be simply 
events, unrelated to any standard of duty, neither good 
nor evil in themselves, and contributing nothing to the 
moral experience and education of the world. They will 
just be regarded as fortunate or unfortunate, expedient or 
inexpedient, but not connected in the human mind with the 
world of reality, nor considered as factors in a social order 
guided by the notion of end or ought. But wars are not 
simply events ; they are actions, with a moral significance, 
and only as they are seen to be violations of the law of God 
and humanity will they come to an end. No other forbidding 
aspect of war will ever cause wars to cease. 

The emotional appeal, based on the brutality of war, has 
not availed. 



102 The Healing of the Nations 

" 'Orderly, hold the light, 
You can lay him down on the table: so. 
Easily — gently ! Thanks — you may go !' 

And it's War, but the part that is not for show." 71 

That is pathetic, but leaves untouched the question of 
compensating gain. There are some things that are worth 
suffering and dying for. 

"The abuse of war, 
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year, 
The smouldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel,— " 72 

all that is deeply tragic and appalling ; but instead of abat- 
ing, it but increases the ferocity of "red-faced war." The 
only valid and decisive appeal is to reason and conscience, 
to the ethical wrongness of war in itself. This alone can 
effectually curb 

"The blind wildbeast of force, 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man." 

There are certain rights and duties which are involved 
in the most rudimentary notion and form of society. That 
is to say, there is an ethical consciousness, more or less 
highly developed in different communities, by which actions 
are judged independently of the circumstances and predis- 
positions of which, as motives, they are the legitimate out- 
come; all actions are judged in the light of a standard of 
duty, a "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not," which we find 
within us, and according to their conformity or want of 
conformity with this law they are approved or condemned. 
"Thou shalt do no murder." "Thou shalt not steal." 
"Thou shalt not covet." 73 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy might." 74 "Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself." 75 There are primal instincts and intuitions, 
in which all men are alike, and which need to be educated, 
developed, and organized for the well-being of society as a 

1 Edgar Wallace, Writ in Barracks: War, St. 1. 
"Tennyson, The Princess, V. 
73 Note G. "Covetousness, p. 239. 
M Deut. 6 5. 
"Lev. 19 18. 



The Healing of the Nations 103 

whole. Now, the outlook of the rational mind is universal ; 
the absolute imperativeness of the moral sense or law is also 
universal. An international law necessarily implies an in- 
ternational morality. Neither can these be dissociated from 
the religious consciousness. The omnipresence of religion 
in the human race, however rude in origin and however 
gross the superstitions with which it is first associated, 
makes us all potentially one. Amidst all variety of beliefs 
and customs there is but one and the same religious life 
expressed. But inasmuch as there are no truths in other 
religions that the Christian gospel lacks, and that there is 
in none of them the moral dynamic that Christian faith 
offers, there can be no guarantee of permanent and universal 
peace and good will, and no hope for humanity, except in 
the Christianization of the world. 

In his statement explaining the project for the out- 
lawry of war Mr. Levinson says, "It is not intended as a 
panacea, nor does it underwrite a millennium. ... It seeks 
to put a final end to the theory of force and violence for 
the determination of right in any human dispute. It does 
not claim that it will usher in the era of brotherly love nor 
create a United States of the World. It merely seeks to 
abolish the worst form of violence and crime existing among 
men." To abolish war is the task of Christianity, and upon 
the churches rests the main responsibility for bringing to 
bear upon all the nations those spiritual influences that 
regenerate the world. Thus will be brought about the pro- 
gressive change of nature that will make all the nations one, 
— one in the recognition of a supreme divine law, one in the 
passion of unselfish service. "Let us declare plainly that 
in every war the Son of man is put to shame — that every 
battlefield is a Calvary on which Christ is crucified afresh." 
So we read in a statement issued by the Commission on In- 
ternational Justice and Good Will of the Federal Council 
of the Churches of Christ in America. 

The New Diplomacy 

One of the most hopeful and heartening signs of the 
times is that we now seem to be recognizing the ethics of 



104 The Healing of the Nations 

Christianity as a true factor in international affairs. 
Christianity has fought its way slowly into all fields of hu- 
man activity, and is just beginning to come to its own in 
diplomacy. The Church is now beginning to define its faith 
as applied not only to the salvation of individual "souls," 
but to the common concerns of nations and to all human 
interests, and to exercise a humanizing influence on politics, 
on theology, on science, art, and literature, and generally 
to help in ushering in the kingdom of God. For this, the 
churches must forget their trivialities, put their shields to- 
gether, and present a united front to the common foe. Out- 
side of the organized churches are also many elements and 
forces at work contributing largely to the making of a new 
world. 

"In temporary pain 

The age is bearing a new breed 
Of men and women^ patriots of the world 
And one another. Boundaries, in vain, 
Birthrights and countries, would constrain 
The old diversity of seed 
To be diversity of soul. 

O mighty patriots, maintain 
Your loyalty ! — till flags unfurled 
For battle shall arraign 

The traitors who unfurled them, shall remain 
And shine over an army with no slain, 
And men from every nation shall enroll 
And women — in the hardihood of peace ! 

What can my anger do but cease? 
Whom shall I fight and who shall be my enemy 
When he is I and I am he?" 76 



The Supremacy of the Spiritual 

In his dream a man once saw the Mediterranean lashed 
into fury by the four winds of heaven, and out of the dark, 
unruly waters there came forth four beasts, — the first like a 
winged lion, such as the dreamer had seen in Eastern sculp- 
ture; the second like a bear, less distinguished than the 
first, with three ribs between its teeth; the third was like a 

Ti Witter Bynner in The Christian Century, February 10, 1921. 



The Healing of the Nations 105 

leopard, with four wings and four heads, moving rapidly 
and stealthily ; the fourth a nameless terror, with great iron 
teeth, nails of brass, ten horns and a little horn, and what 
it could not devour it stamped angrily with its feet : hurtful, 
untamable "monsters of the prime." These he understood 
to represent the four Great Powers of the ancient world. 
But the dreamer saw them deprived of their power and their 
bodies destroyed. Then, in a glorious vision, this Daniel 
saw a person in human form coming with the clouds of 
heaven, and there was given him a kingdom, that all peoples, 
nations, and languages should serve him ; "and his dominion 
is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away." 
Which things contain an allegory. The age of brute force 
is succeeded by that of brain and heart and conscience; 
spiritual forces assert at last their supremacy over the tur- 
bulent, ungoverned passions of men. Here we have in brief 
the first attempt of the Hebrew mind to formulate a phi- 
losophy of history as a struggle between brute strength and 
moral power, culminating in the kingdom of humanity, the 
universal rule of the Son of man. The only kingdom that 
God ever recognizes is the kingdom that is founded, not on 
the predatory instincts and appetites of the beast, but on 
the great human instincts of service and fellowship, and it is 
the only kingdom that will last. The British lion, the 
Russian bear, the German and the American eagle, and the 
Chinese dragon, as national emblems and designations, are 
the late survivals of the old-world regime that is passing 
away to make room for a spiritual and indestructible king- 
dom. "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be 
shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service 
well-pleasing to God." 

The only true greatness is moral greatness. All nations 
and individuals alike must meet the inexorable challenge: 
What is thy moral value to the world? No nation can be 
great if its children are ignorant and hungry, its men and 
women impure, uncharitable, worldly; if selfishness rules 
its industry, and if its activities are not governed by spiri- 
tual compulsions. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE AGE OF FAITH AND REASON 

The Rationality of History 

"A nation's uses are immortal," and only as it ministers 
to the spiritual in men can it itself claim immortality. That 
is the testimony of experience to the rationality of history. 
Laban said, "I have learned by experience (RV 'divined') 
that Jehovah hath blessed me for thy sake." What is ex- 
perience if not that which reveals the moral continuity of 
history? What is history? Has it any intelligible mean- 
ing? Does it seem to make for anything? Or is it all an 
interminable tangle, and idle pageant of births and deaths, 
and loves and wars, and pleasure and pain, of the flowering 
and fading of civilizations and imperfect systems? What 
are the functions of the true historian? Is he a mere nar- 
rator of bare facts, a story teller, or is he supposed to 
explain the relations which these facts sustain to one another, 
and to discover the laws or "ideas" which underlie and 
connect them in one organic whole? Is history a valley 
of dry bones, or is it a temple of life? Laban said, "I 
have learned by experience." Does experience teach? Do 
we find in the course of the world any indications of power, 
an intelligent power, working for just and beneficent ends? 
Is there "an increasing purpose" that runs through all the 
ages, some final consummation toward which they are all 
tending, and to which they are all contributing? 

The Rise and Fall of Nations 

In answer we have the unmistakable witness of history 
to the fact that the rise and fall of men and nations and 
empires are determined by laws as immutable as those which 

106 



The Healing of the Nations 107 

govern the tides of the sea or which guide the stars in their 
courses. What Laban said then, others have felt and seen 
and said in all ages: "I have observed the signs. 77 I have 
divined. I have learned by experience." Behind all institu- 
tions and governments, behind all kingdoms and republics, 
we can trace the workings of eternal law ushering in and 
establishing the kingdom of God upon the earth. With 
united voice the nations of the past — Assyria, Babylon, 
Greece, Rome, Venice, Spain — all declare that the "nation 
and kingdom that will not serve God shall perish"; that no 
art, no philosophy, no culture can save from death the 
nation that is immoral ; that no nation is destined to endure 
which is not founded on righteousness ; that any nation that 
puts its foot on the neck of prostrate humanity courts its 
own destruction; that justice and high aims and the desire 
to serve in those who rule is the best promise of national 
immortality ; that all nations that put their trust in material 
resources, carnal force, or worldly wisdom shall be utterly 
wasted; that no nation was ever saved from death and hell 
by making covenants with them. 

Christ or Ccesar 

The struggle in which we recently participated was a 
struggle between moral ideals and material power, between 
principle and expediency, between the spirit of democracy 
and autocratic and militaristic despotism, between Chris- 
tianity and Csesarism. We fought that the world might 
rise above the wicked and cruel tyranny that crushed it, 
from the load of armament and wasteful taxation that over- 
burdens it, to the enjoyment of an abiding peace based upon 
righteousness' and international justice, service, and brother- 
hood. Every kaiser must go — the imperious and deluded 
creatures that sit on thrones ; yes, and also the kaisers of 
industry and of labor, of the political caucus and of the 
church council, so that a pure theocratic democracy — the 
reign of the Son of man — may be established both in church 
and state. European oligarchy and American plutocracy 
are moral anachronisms. The American aristocracy of 

"Gen. SO 27, Jewish Publication Society of America (1917). 



108 The Healing of the Nations 

wealth is no less menacing than the European aristocracy 
of blood. The only aristocracy that deserves the world's 
homage is the aristocracy of service. Life has no other 
meaning. To help secure these divine ends America will 
have to abandon her traditional policy of isolation; and to 
this sacred cause we are now committed. 

"Who is wise and understanding among you? let him show 
by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. But if ye 
have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and 
lie not against the truth. This wisdom is not a wisdom that 
cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For 
where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every 
vile deed. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then 
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. And the fruit of 
righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace. ,, 78 

A New Reading of History 

Service, then, is the true measure of greatness, the secret 
of prosperity, the only pledge of permanence. "Whosoever 
would be first among you shall be your servant." The very 
word "service," however, has been largely associated in the 
past with militarism, "active service" almost exclusively so. 
And public honors have been mostly accorded to those who 
have been so employed. The successful makers of war have 
been the heroes, the men that you see in the parks and public 
squares, done in bronze, sitting on prancing bronze horses. 
Children were taught history as mostly made up of wars, 
and nothing was ever quite so great or glorious to the 
youthful mind as royal persons and generals and successful 
battles and blood-stained fields. Large space was devoted 
to these, while the story of constitutional growth, of in- 
dustrial and social progress was given little prominence. 
But spectacular events are not always those of the most 
real importance. The work of Pericles in building up the 
most glorious city of the ancient world was of greater im- 
portance than the Peloponnesian War. 

No one would for a moment wish to detract from the 

n James S 13-18. 



The Healing of the Nations 109 

value of any service rendered in war or any fine qualities 
thus displayed. 

"In some good cause, not in mine own, 
To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, 
And like a warrior overthrown; 

Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, 
When, soiFd with noble dust, he hears 
His country's war-song thrill his ears: 

Then dying of a mortal stroke, 
What time the foeman's line is broke, 
And all the war is roll'd in smoke." 79 

"Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously 
waves with his hand, 
He gasps through the clot Mind not me — mind — the entrench- 
ments." 80 

That is magnificent, and that is war. But that is not all 
of history that is deserving of honorable mention. Worthy 
as it is of commemoration, 

"Yet much remains 
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories 
No less renown'd than War." 81 

The greatest merit, among many others, of Green's 
"Short History of the English People" is in the fact that it 
is "a history, not of English kings or English conquests, 
but of the English people," and that it is chiefly concerned 
with "the incidents of that constitutional, intellectual, and 
social advance in which," as the author says, "we read the 
history of the nation itself." The very soul of the nation 
is therein revealed. "It is with this purpose," he continues, 
"that I have devoted more space to Chaucer than to Cressy, 
to Caxton than to the petty strife of Yorkist and Lancas- 
trian, to the Poor Law of Elizabeth than to her victory at 
Cadiz, to the Methodist Revival than to the escape of the 
Y^oung Pretender." "Books," his wife tells us, "were not 
his only sources of knowledge." 

79 Tennyson, The Two Voices, II, 51-53. 

80 Walt Whitman, Heroes. 

81 Milton, To the Lord General Cromwell. 



110 The Healing of the Nations 

"To the last he looked on his London life as having given 
him his best lessons in history. It was with his churchwardens, 
his schoolmasters, in vestry meetings, in police courts, at boards 
of guardians, in service in chapel or church, in the daily life of 
the dock-labourer, the tradesman, the costermonger, in the sum- 
mer visitation of cholera, in the winter misery that followed 
economic changes, that he learnt what the life of the people 
meant as perhaps no historian had ever learnt it before. ,, 

And so we had, for the first time, a history dealing in a 
truly philosophical spirit with the spiritual forces from 
which the outer aspects of national or political life proceed. 
What Macaulay had done in some measure for a period of 
English history, J. R. Green did for it as a whole. As a 
result of his work, and of others' who have followed in his 
spirit, there has come about a truer understanding of the 
meaning of history and a better appreciation of the con- 
tributions of those who in all walks of life have really served 
their own generation by the will of God and to the great 
gain of civilization. 

The New Order of Chivalry 

Since the Age of Chivalry came to an end, there has 
come to be recognized a New Order of Knighthood and 
Ladyhood, having for its prototypes such most noble souls 
as Moses the Deliverer, 82 Hiram of Tyre, 83 Ebedmelech 
the Ethiopian, 84 Ruth the Moabitess, 85 the Good Samari- 
tan, 86 and St. Luke the Physician. 87 These have gone forth 
clad in the invisible armor recommended by St. Paul, and 
having their feet "shod with the preparation of the gospel 
of peace," ever eager to bring glad tidings of good things, 
through honest labor and with deeds of charity seeking to 
bring in the reign of truth and love and concord, working 
for the spiritual redemption and social reconstruction of the 
world. They have gone forth against ignorance and super- 

83 Exod. 2 16-19; Acts 7 35. 

83 1 Kings 5. 

^Jer. 88 7-13. 

85 Ruth 1 15-18. 

88 Luke 10 30-37. 

87 Col. 4 14; 2 Tim. 4 11. 



The Healing of the Nations 111 

stition, against slavery and sickness, and have made war 
on war, not simply by talking against it but by the practical 
inculcation and exemplification of the gospel of reason, 
justice, and love. Free from the spirit of isolation and 
ostracism, they have gone forth as dispensers of God's gifts 
and ministers of His hospitality to all mankind, some of 
them unconsciously, perhaps, like Cyrus, but none the less 
truly. 88 Foremost among those who have been engaged in 
the constructive work of the world are ministers, of the gospel, 
missionaries of the cross, and poets of faith and freedom, 
too numerous to mention. The arts of peace, however, have 
been pursued by persons belonging to all social ranks and 
stages of culture, and of all creeds and color. Only a few 
representatives of various types of service can here be men- 
tioned, among the best known of whom are Gutenberg, Co- 
lumbus, Michelangelo, Raphael, Palissy, Cervantes, Henri 
IV., Shakespeare, Galileo, Francis Bacon, Governor Brad- 
ford, Massasoit, Grotius, Z. Jansen, Rembrandt, Pascal, 
Spinoza, Leeuwenhoeck, Sir Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, Handel, 
Benjamin Franklin, Linnaeus, Samuel Johnson, Vauvenargues, 
Cristofori, Immanuel Kant, John Howard, Captain James 
Cook, George Washington, Edward Gibbon, Robert Raikes, 
Joseph Brant, Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Philippe Pinel, Goethe, 
George Fulton, Eli Whitney, Beethoven, Bichat, S. T. Cole- 
ridge, Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Owen, 
Henry Hallam, Elizabeth Fry, George Stephenson, Morse, 
George Peabody, Earl Shaftesbury, Emerson, Sainte-Beuve, 
Mazzini, Hans C. Andersen, George Muller, Abraham Lin- 
coln, Charles Darwin, Sir J. Y. Simpson, Horace Greeley, 
Charles Dickens, Charles Reade, G. F. Watts, Cyrus W. 
Field, Victor Hugo, Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, Florence 
Nightingale, 90 Susan B. Anthony, Dostoievsky, Helmholtz, 
M. W. Baldwin, 89 Samuel Plimsoll, Lord Kelvin, Lord Lis- 
ter, Clara Barton, 90 Charles Bradlaugh, S. L. Clemens, 
Louis Pasteur, Arnold Toynbee, Booker T. Washington, 
Sir John Rhys, Sir Henry Jones, Dr. Walter Reed, Dr. J. 
W. Lazear, Dr. Howard B. Cross. 91 

88 Note H. "Cyrus," p. 239. 

89 Note I.-P., p. 239. 

90 Note J.-R, p. 240. 
* Note K.-R, p. 240. 



112 The Healing of the Nations 

The weapons of their warfare were not meant for harm. 
The battles they fought were bloodless battles ; the enemies 
they slew were the enemies of all. They set constructive 
forces at work. They used their brains. They stood for 
creative ideas, and ideas eventually rule the world. They 
will be remembered when "the brasen throat of war has 
ceased to roar." The benefits they bestowed were for the 
healing and upbuilding of the nations. 

"Cannon-balls may aid the truth, 

But thought's a weapon stronger; 
Well win our battles by its aid, 
Wait a little longer." 92 

The Holy Grail 

The Christian My thus. "There exists a cycle of Chris- 
tian my thus, semi-historical, semi-legendary, their subject- 
matter being essentially human and permanent. To this or- 
der of Christian mythus belong the cycle of Arthurian ro- 
mance, Faust, Tannhauser, and Don Juan." 93 They all 
deal in a fundamental way with the question of sin and its 
forgiveness, the ennobling power of faith and duty, the 
illusiveness and uses of the imagination, the reality of truth. 
They embody certain ideas and ideals especially pertaining 
to the Christian era, and have had for Christian poets an 
interest and charm similar to those which the familiar 
stories belonging to the Heroic Age of Greece — the Tale 
of Troy and Prometheus — had for a succession of Greek 
poets; and the secret of it lies in this essentially human 
and, therefore, permanent element. 

Tennyson, following Map, combines in one noble concep- 
tion the History of King Arthur and the Quest of the 
Holy Grail, — two traditions which at first were quite sepa- 
rate and distinct. The Holy Grail was, the legend tells us, 
the dish used by Joseph of Arimathea to receive the drops 
of blood that came from Christ's wounds at the crucifixion. 
'Holy Grail' is a translation of Sanc-Greal or San Graal, 
which means 'holy bowl,' 'dish,' or 'crater.' The dish which 

92 Charles Mackay, There's a Good Time Commg. 
88 Roden Noel, A Modern Fcmst, pp. 52, 59. 



The Healing of the Nations 113 

Joseph employed for the purpose named has been confused 
with the cup used by Christ at the Holy Supper, and it was 
popularly supposed that it meant sang real, 'the true blood.' 
It is sometimes described as a paten for holding food, and 
sometimes as a cup or chalice. In the earlier traditions it 
apparently formed part of a Celtic agricultural myth, and 
was later transformed for ecclesiastical purposes into the 
sacramental cup of the Last Supper, which Pilate gave to 
Joseph, and in which Joseph treasured the blood that flowed 
from the five sacred wounds. The chalice having by some 
miraculous virtue kept Joseph insensible to pain and hunger 
during an imprisonment of forty-two years, was brought 
by him after his release to Glastonbury, England. For 
the Arimathaean, it is added, was the first to evangelize the 
western part of Britain, although others assign the con- 
version of Britain to Bran (or Brons) the Blessed. 94 
Here, after a time, the Grail was lost, and the story of it 
even forgotten or only remembered in some dim way. 

According to Wolfram von Eschenbach ("Parzival") the Grail 
was a stone, but in all other romances it is a cup or vessel. 
Some versions report it to be a cup made of one large emerald, 
dropped from the crown of the falling Satan, who had sought 
to create a revolt in the third heaven. In the Cathedral of San 
Lorenzo at Genoa is shown a hexagonal dish of greenish glass, 
once supposed to be a single emerald, and the pious verger will 
not hesitate to tell you solemnly that that "Sagro Catino" is 
indeed the Holy Cup, and that it was brought to Solomon by 
the Queen of Sheba. 

The precious vessel was handed down through a chosen line 
of kings in anticipation of the ideal promised knight's coming. 

The courtier and church reformer, Walter Map, in the 
time of Henry II., is credited by some with having invented 
the story of the Grail. This is disputed on good authority; 
but it was he who first combined the legend of the Round 
Table with that of the Holy Grail in one romance. And 
it was done in a very simple way : The knights sat round the 
Table, but the Grail was not to be seen, for the days were 
evil and the knights had fallen from virtue, and the Holy 

94 A. Nutt, Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 219. 



114 The Healing of the Nations 

Cup, visible only to pure eyes, had disappeared. Then Map 
sent the knights wandering over land and sea in quest of 
the sacred vessel. They ride far away over hill and dale, 
through dim forests and dark waters. They are tempted 
and succumb, or they struggle and repent, if so they may 
catch a glimpse of the Grail. One only, of all King 
Arthur's knights, succeeded wholly in the quest, saw the 
Cup, followed it to the Holy City, and never returned. 
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." 

Walter Map (who is not to be confused with Archdeacon 
Walter of Oxford) rendered a great service in fusing, or at 
least intertwining, the two stories, for the British legends 
contained nothing but tales of chivalry and adventure, — 
in them was nothing but animal heat and energy. But now 
there fell upon the knights the strange allurement of the 
Holy Ghost, and following its mystic impulse they set forth 
on their new quest with passionate heroism and devotion. 
Physical strength is consecrated to the highest end, nat- 
ural virtues are sanctified by a spiritual purpose. There 
must be no half-heartedness, no double-mindedness, no com- 
promise with the world. It was the voice of God calling 
them to singleness of purpose, to purity of life and in- 
tensive service. "Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
strength." Thus did Walter Map use the story of the 
Grail to give new life and glory to the tales of Arthur. It 
marks a deliberate effort on the part of ecclesiastical writers 
to neutralize the dangerous element in chivalry, which over- 
emphasized physical perfection and prowess, and to afford 
proper spiritual exercise to the fighting instinct. Its weak- 
ness and ecclesiastical bias lay, as we shall see, in its call to 
celibacy, asceticism, and egoistic mysticism. 

The Scientific Temper 

The Catholic bias is very evident in the admixture of 
mysticism and superstition in the legend. The Protestant's 
danger lies in another direction, especially in this scientific 
age, when traditionalism and authority count for less, and 
reason and research for more than at any time. Aberglaube 



The Healing of the Nations 115 

no longer enthralls ; 95 religious folk-lore and fairy tale 
are not taken at their face value, but are given a deeper 
meaning. No one now nails a horse-shoe to the mast or 
threshold, except it be in defiance of the old superstition. 
The prevailing tendency today is rather toward scepticism 
of the preternatural and supernatural. To believe on 
authority or under duress is contrary to the whole trend and 
set of the modern mind. Lotze's "confidence of reason in 
itself" is now set forth as the faith which lies at the root 
of all knowledge. Whatever is of faith must come as the 
conclusion of the reason upon a consideration of all the 
evidence and after due weight of all the modes of our ex- 
perience. The will to believe is conditioned upon the right 
and result of investigation. Emerson said, "We live in a 
transition period, when the old faiths which comforted na- 
tions, and not only so, but made nations, seem to have spent 
their force. . . . There is no faith in the intellectual, none 
in the moral universe. There is faith in chemistry, in meat, 
and wine, in wealth, in machinery, in the steam-engine, 
galvanic battery, ttfrbine wheels, sewing-machines, and in 
public opinion, but not in divine causes. . . . The stern old 
faiths have all pulverized. 'Tis a whole population of 
gentlemen and ladies out in search of religions." 96 That 
was too gloomy a picture for his own time, as it surely is 
for ours, albeit it contains some truth, equally applicable to 
his time and ours. There is no real cause for alarm, how- 
ever. The transition indicates a natural effect of the 
scientific triumphs, and still more of the scientific spirit, of 
the time. Any real antagonism between science and religion 
is of course impossible. There is no need to tremble for 
the ark of God. The advancement of learning may give us 
a shorter creed, but it will give us a deeper faith. The 
progress of culture means the sloughing off of erroneous 
beliefs, the taking on of new and better ideas — sartor re- 
sartus — or, to use Paul's unique and striking metaphor, 
"being clothed upon with our (new) house." 97 

It is pathetic to see the stern old faiths which have 

95 Cf. M. Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 87. 

96 Essays, "Worship." 
m 2 Cor. 5 2 AV. 



116 The Healing of the Nations 

served their day wax old and pass away. But it is best to 
buy the truth at whatever cost, and not to sell it at any 
price. 

A Spiritual Universe 

One very happy result of the scientific temper of the 
age is the restoration of spirituality to our conception of 
the universe. For science has demonstrated nothing more 
clearly than that spiritual forces lie back of all phenomena, 
that "underneath are the everlasting arms." There is no 
Materialism today. We are all Spiritualists or Idealists. 
We say with Job, "He stretcheth out the north over empty 
space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing" — upon the 
invisible, the spiritual, the eternal. To its very last electron 
the universe is spiritual. Even the so-called Materialist will 
admit that physics, chemical combination and reaction, 
electric energy, and all such, are inadequate as explanations 
of the ultimate reality. Thus the New Science reaffirms the 
fundamental and permanent elements of the Old Faith. 
Much confusion has resulted from the attempt to draw a 
line of demarcation between the physical and the spiritual, 
between nature and the supernatural. A vague idea has 
been diffused of some region from which science must draw 
back and into which men are to enter blindfold, if at all. 
We are told that spiritual truths should be handled rever- 
ently. That is true, and it applies equally to all truth. 
The scientist's laboratory is as sacred as any hallowed 
cathedral. The Holy Bible itself nowhere makes any dis- 
tinction between natural science and spiritual revelation as 
legitimate objects of study, nor sets any limits to investi- 
gation and research. God's work is His word to man, even 
as it is written, "The words of Amos . . . which he saw." 
"The word of Jehovah that came to Micah . . . which he 
saw." "The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet did see." 
Moses, when he had a vision of God in the burning, ever- 
green acacia, took off his shoes and said, "I will turn aside 
now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." 
It was holy ground, but he would see and understand. And 
why not? Why should we receive our faith and religion at 
second-hand ? Why should we depend and live only on other 



The Healing of the Nations 117 

peopled experiences? Life means a continuous affirming 
and possessing of one's experience, which is the distinction 
of the self-conscious individual. Why not see with our own 
eyes, think with our own brains, feel with our own hearts, 
and be true to our own selves? Let us find out, if possible, 
the whence and the whither of it all, and our own place and 
work and destiny as organic to the great world-order. This 
will guide and should inspire us in all our conduct. A more 
scientific, intelligent faith does not mean less religion. "You 
say, there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy 
weather, there is no sun, when at that moment we are wit- 
nessing one of his superlative effects." 98 Timid theologians 
frequently set up the warning sign, "Supernatural Reserva- 
tion! No thoroughfare!" And this effort to repress in- 
quiry, to obscure the eye of faith, to close up certain avenues 
of thought, has always wrought great harm, and is as hurt- 
ful today as ever. Do not all roads in science lead to the 
larger truth, the surer faith? Surely all laws converge in 
the Lawgiver, and all the lines of creation run up to God. 

A Rational Faith 

After all, the age is not sceptical of truth, but only of 
certain methods employed and conclusions drawn in the 
pursuit of truth. It has been said that "no age has em- 
ployed reason more, nor trusted it less, than our own," and 
especially in the matters which are best worth knowing, 
namely, the principles of our moral and religious life. It is 
true that certain of our philosophers question the trust- 
worthiness of the human mind and the validity of all knowl- 
edge. Human reason, it is said, is really too weak to deal 
with the great problems of ethics and religion. But there 
is nothing new in this attitude. The first thing that the 
philosophers did, after Anaxagoras had discovered the 
human intellect, was to doubt and distrust it, and modern 
philosophers are chiefly exercised as to whether we can know 
anything. Metaphysics has sunk into epistemology. An 
extensive literature, more voluminous than luminous, has 
recently appeared, which denies the power of the intellect 

"Emerson, Essays, "Worship." 



118 The Healing of the Nations 

to ascertain truth. Then it must follow, as the night the 
day, that scepticism itself is the truth. The Personal Ideal- 
ists are distrustful of "mere intellectualism," although no 
one has ever yet been known to suffer from that disease. 
In spite of all this, however, the human intellect has still 
gone on patiently and unflaggingly doing its work, with very 
fruitful results. And that principle or faculty which has 
produced good results in the realm of science cannot be 
excluded or denied its rights in the sphere of morals and 
religion. We cannot put on and off our intellectual habits 
at will. It were not easy for man to divest himself of his 
own nature as a rational being, and it would certainly be a 
most disastrous thing if it happened. "I express myself 
with caution," said Bishop Butler, "lest I should be mis- 
taken to vilify reason, which is indeed the only faculty we 
have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even revela- 
tion itself." " A religion is true in the measure in which 
it is rational, the moral reason being of course included. 
The distrust of reason has been the strongest bulwark of 
sacerdotalism and all superstitions, and herein we may dis- 
cover at least one reason for the merging of the legend of 
the Holy Grail with that of the Round Table. 

Reason and Emotion 

It is the "heart," we are told, and not the "head," which 
has ruled the thought and directed the activities of man, and 
built up the institutions of civilization and the whole world 
of human relations. It is his subconsciousness, informed 
and inspired by intuitions and inherited traditions — "the 
feelings of the heart" — of which he neither knows the origin 
nor the significance, by which man has always been moved 
and guided. 100 But while we readily concede the service of 
emotion to truth, one would not like to run his family on 
emotion, either. It is far better when the contemplation of 
the truth rouses emotion. And while, as a matter of abstract 
thought and theory, the present age is sceptical of 
the conclusions of reason and the validity of intellectual 

99 Analogy, Part I, Chap. iii. 

100 The Hibbert Journal, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 231. 



The Healing of the Nations 119 

knowledge, the world still proceeds on the assumption that 
the reason can be very usefully employed in the investigation 
of truth and in the directing of the world's affairs, and in 
fact is very successfully employed in both of these direc- 
tions. Hence the collision between the theory and the prac- 
tice of our time, between the practical use of reason and 
our theoretical distrust of it. The best literature of the 
day evinces a deep religious consciousness, a growing faith 
in the absoluteness of moral distinctions, and a more en- 
lightened conviction that underneath all things is a loving, 
intelligent will and purpose. What our age distrusts is not 
religion, but dogmatism; what repels it is not the tradition 
of faith but obscurantism, make-believe, and above all, cant. 
Faith is becoming more scientific, and science more reverent 
and religious. There is no need and no possibility of a com- 
promise between reason and religion; false to either is false 
to both. There must be absolute loyalty, with no divided 
devotion, to the one as to the other. "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy mind." The honest pursuit of 
truth will never give you the feeling that you are alienated 
from God. And while it is true that "with the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness," it is also true that "belief 
cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ," 101 
the word that offers the most tremendous challenge of any 
ever spoken to mind and heart and will. 

Superstition 

There is no occasion for intellectual pride. There is 
much we cannot know, much indeed that we shall have to 
unlearn, "whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away." 
There is nothing more fitting or becoming than reserve and 
humility and teachableness in the presence of life and truth. 
"Peace settles where the intellect is meek." This, however, 
does not imply any necessity for intellectual suicide. Super- 
stition does not mean too much faith; it means too much 
credulity and too little knowledge. While we fight against 
ignorance and superstition, we should be careful lest in 
cutting down the old tree, or even in lopping off some dead 

101 Rom. 10 10, 17. 



120 The Healing of the Nations 

branches, we kill its dryad too. There may be a need for 
restating our faith, but never for discarding it. Formulas 
and symbols change with advancing knowledge. There is a 
divinity in the theology of the Churchy and underlying its 
ritual, which is not subject to change. We must beware lest 
the spirit perish with the form which gave it temporary 
expression. 

"Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell; 
That mind and soul, according well, 

May make one music as before, 

But vaster." 

It is highly improbable that a precious green stone ever 
dropped from Lucifer's crown as he went hurtling through 
space; that out of it was made the cup used at the Last 
Supper; that it suddenly vanished and again appeared, 
floating through the air. We say all that is both incredible 
and highly absurd. Even so ; but that matters very little. 
Any common pebble, or a "little flower in the crannied wall," 
would do just as well as a symbol of God's presence and 
power. Let us not lose God in His works, nor be so intent 
on the nature of the symbol as to miss its significance. 

"Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God." 102 

But some one will say, "There are deep and holy mysteries 
pertaining to religion which you cannot hope and have no 
right to understand." It is true that mysteries will always 
remain. The faith that does not completely baffle the in- 
tellect on occasion can never satisfy the heart. The spirit 
of man ever cries, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than 
I." But man has a right, and it is his duty, to learn all 
that is possible to him. Things invisible, inaudible, un- 
imaginable, God has revealed to men "through the Spirit: 
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of 
God." And "the spirit which is from God," acting upon 
"the spirit of man" — man's conscious self in thought — gives 
spiritual insight, enabling us to "know the things that were 

102 E. B. Browning, Aurora Leigh, Bk. vii. 



The Healing of the Nations 121 

freely given to us of God." "He that is spiritual judgeth — 
examine th — all things." 

Authority m Religion 

This age is less disposed than former ages to accept any 
external authority in matters of faith, whether it be that of 
an infallible book, an ecclesiastical council, or an infallible 
pope. The ecumenical consciousness of the Church is not 
to be lightly set aside, but it cannot be held as supreme and 
final. And yet there must be some final, adequate, and 
absolute authority to render any law or any conviction 
effective. The affirmations of the soul must be sanctioned 
and enforced by some authority outside of ourselves before 
they can become safe guides or sufficient motives in matters 
of conduct. "Religion," as we have seen, "is the recognition 
of our duties as Divine commandments." All the ways of 
duty, however they may diverge, glide up to the throne of 
God. The Moral Law is imposed by an authority foreign to 
our personality, and is imperative in its demands. We can 
therefore rise to a knowledge of the divine through our moral 
nature. But our progress in divine knowledge is con- 
ditioned upon our responsiveness to divine truth. 

Progressive Revelation 

A progressive revelation is impossible without progressive 
receptivity. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
ye cannot bear them now." John Robinson, in urging his 
people to keep their minds and hearts open to the Divine 
Spirit, said truly that "God hath more truth and light yet 
to break out of His Holy Word," even as there is light 
traveling from other worlds which has not yet reached the 
earth. And Robinson also added, "True religion cannot 
conflict with right reason and sound experience." Revela- 
tion does not suppress the intellect or obviate the exercise 
of reason. Any unexercised organ or faculty becomes atro- 
phied and dies. "The man that wandereth out of the way 
of understanding shall rest in the assembly of the dead." 108 

108 Prov. U 16. 



122 The Healing of the Nations 

Progress is toilsome and difficult. Paul "confirmed the souls 
of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, 
and that through many tribulations we must enter into 
the kingdom of God." A stupid scholar has few difficulties. 
Hard problems do not trouble him; he simply ignores them, 
or is "blissfully" unconscious of them. But a progressive ex- 
perience has to grow through difficulties. The path of 
Bunyan's Pilgrim was beset with difficulties and obstacles. 
He had to scale Mount Error and Mount Caution, to bear 
with Ignorance while he jangled, and to pass over the En- 
chanted Ground, where for a while he seemed bewitched. 
Many phantoms and hobgoblins he had to fight and lay low. 
That is by no means an unusual experience. "O foolish 
Galatians, who did bewitch you?" Senseless folk! what evil 
fascination turned you away? Tennyson tells us of one who 
had his "honest doubts" which made "half the creeds" un- 
real to him. But he fainted not ; he called up all his energies 
and engaged in the inevitable combat, 

"He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them: thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own." 104 

A Progressive Faith 

We have had recent and interesting examples of this 
conflict in the lives of Maurice de Guerin, G. J. Romanes, 
Father Tyrrell, and R. L. Swain, all of whom found the rest 
of a satisfactory faith by different approaches. We meas- 
ure the moral value of a man by his movements. Indiffer- 
ence will not do. Our chief concern is, is he moving? There 
must be eagerness of pursuit after truth and moral good- 
ness. It matters not so much what a man believes, but is he 
pursuing? Dr. Swain says that he never was more of a 
Christian than in his agnostic days when he was feeling 
darkly after God, if haply he might stumble against His 
throne, until at last there came the sunrise on his suppliant 
soul. 105 

104 In Memoriam, xcvi. 

106 What and Where is God? 



The Healing of the Nations 123 

"Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him." 106 

Honest, fearless thinking, whether it be agnostic or super- 
stitious, will eventually lead to the true point of view. "The 
greatest error will inevitably right itself if carried logically 
to its conclusion." And he who lives up to the measure of 
the light he has at the moment, "shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God." True knowledge is conditioned upon 
the unfoldment of man's spiritual nature, the seeking of the 
kingdom of heaven that is within. 107 Truth, all truth, is 
ready to be disclosed to him who "doeth the will," and the 
teaching will be communicated to him through his own moral 
nature. It is the only way. Man has thought, conscience, 
and heart; hence we conclude that God must be these in 
perfection — reason, righteousness, and grace. He there- 
fore speaks, acts, and loves. "These are personal acts, 
needing personal forms of expression and personal recip- 
ients, and in Christ we find the personal medium of this reve- 
lation," 108 in His disciples the personal recipients of 
it. 109 The self-disclosure of the Divine Nature is seen in 
the progressive ideals of mankind. The presence of the 
Ideal bears witness to the reality of God within us. Now, 
as there is no finality in thought, and all progress is relative; 
and as man is a finite-infinite being — that is, has the capacity 
for infinite progress ; and further, as we conceive of God 
as infinite personality, transcendent as well as immanent, 
there opens up before us the alluring prospect of a Perfect 
Being revealing himself progressively in our minds as we 
are able increasingly to bear the weight and glory of that 
revelation. And that means assimilation and transforma- 
tion. "We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror 
the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit." 
"With unveiled — open — face": for in the pursuit of truth 
there must be perfect candor and simplicity — no presupposi- 

106 Browning, Paracelsus, V. 

107 John U 17; 16 13. 

108 A. M. Fairbairn, The Expositor, 6th Series. No. 34. 

109 John 17 14, 20. 



124 The Healing of the Nations 

tions or prejudices — and a willingness to learn at any cost. 
In all the sciences — each one of them a word of God, theology 
included — honesty of thought is a sine qua non. But intel- 
lectual honesty often leads to doubt and disquiet while, 
strangely enough, spiritual peace and tranquillity seem to 
be the reward of intellectual diffidence or lethargy. Some 
are born believers, and seem incapable of scepticism, while 
others have to fight for every inch of ground they occupy 
in matters of faith. Those who find faith easy can afford to 
be magnanimous toward those for whom it is not so simple. 

"Hard to Believe" 

"It is hard to believe in God," said Lord Tennyson once. 
So difficult of human apprehension is God, that He is often 
described as hiding himself, — retreating behind all laws and 
all phenomena, "inclosing the face of His throne, and spread- 
ing His cloud upon it." 110 A Being who is supposed to be 
everywhere in general is apt to become to our thought so 
attenuated as to be nowhere in particular, and hardly to 
be thought of as an object of worship. "It is hard to believe 
in God, but it is harder not to believe. I believe in God 
not from what I see in Nature, but from what I find in 
man. . . . God is love, transcendent, all-pervading. But 
we do not get this faith from Nature or the world. If we 
look at Nature alone, full of perfection and imperfection, 
she tells us that God is disease, murder, and rapine. 111 We 
get this faith from ourselves, from what is highest within us, 
which recognizes that there is not one fruitless pang, just as 
there is not (as Browning says) 'one lost good.'" 112 
Wordsworth found God in Nature as well as "in the mind 
of man." 113 It is hard to believe, for He is most hidden. 
It is harder not to believe, for He is most manifest. "God 
is light," self-revealing, "and in Him is no darkness at all." 
He has nothing to conceal. And when we say that God is 
infinite, it does not mean that the infinite is something in- 
determinate, or something definable only in negative terms, 



110 Job 23 9; 26 9; Ps. 89 46; Isa. 45 15. 

111 Cf . In Memoriam, liv-lvi. 



lvt Abt Vogler. 
111 T intern Abbey. 



The Healing of the Nations 125 

or something incomprehensible. Infinitude is not some con- 
cept that is beaten out into unreality. Our knowledge 
of reality is necessarily limited and partial. It grows from 
more to more, for truth, like Nature, says, "Cut, and come 
again." 114 And when we say there is no finality in 
thought, 115 that is not to deny the validity of our present 
knowledge. 

The Divine Immanence 

Religion, as a relation of man to God, by its very nature 
implies revelation, the correspondent relation of God to man. 
The moral conscience and the religious consciousness have 
to be reckoned with as undeniably as any facts of science, 
and they bear witness to the presence within us of "a power 
not ourselves," and not only of a power, but also of moral 
worth which we cannot claim for ourselves. All religion 
resolves itself into a conscious relation, on our part, to a 
higher than we. And when we say further, that in our moral 
nature we are sensible of an authority foreign to our person- 
ality, we are also conscious of "a presence that disturbs us 
with the joy of elevated thoughts" ; we have "a sense sublime 
of something far more deeply interfused" with our own 
personality than anything in that physical universe of 
which we are organic parts. And again, when we speak of 
God as immanent in us, that immanence, having regard to 
man's liberty and responsibility, must be regarded not as 
the arbitrary and direct action of God compelling or coerc- 
ing us, but rather as personal communion and companion- 
ship in man's moral life, — immanent in us, and yet morally 
no less than metaphysically transcendent. Our knowledge 
of God, then, comes through our moral nature, illuminated 
and quickened by the Spirit of Christ. He thus becomes, 
not some subtle essence or impersonal 'principle' diffused 
through the universe, but our heavenly Father, whose own 
life is involved in the fortunes of His children. We thus 
consciously relate ourselves to Him, and intelligently worship 
Him. There is nothing incompatible, therefore, between 
reason and religion; indeed we are never so strong as when 

114 Crabbe, Tales, vii. 
115 1 Cor. IS 9-12. 



126 The Healing of the Nations 

faith and knowledge go hand in hand, ministering to each 
other in a holy and indissoluble union. 

"There are two things," said Mohammed, "which I abhor, 
the learned in his infidelities, and the fool in his devotions." 
These are the false extremes — the Scylla and Charybdis — of 
our spiritual life, intellectual pride on the one hand, and 
religious fanaticism on the other, — infidelity and supersti- 
tion. Religion appeals to man in the whole organic unity 
of his nature, intellectual, emotional, and volitional. With 
the advancement of knowledge, we may find it necessary to 
revise or abandon some of our creeds and theories. But 
this will in no wise affect the permanent elements, the abid- 
ing realities of religion. For example, we find that the 
present age is indisposed toward miracles. Scientific re- 
search has led to the discovery of the organic unity of 
the universe, and the uniformity of law both in the realms 
of mind and matter, so that any breaches in the natural 
order have become incredible. 



Miracles as Evidence 

Miracles are no longer accepted as necessary or adequate 
evidences of the Divine origin of Christianity. They may be 
true, or they may themselves not be sufficiently evidenced. 
To many minds they are a positive hindrance to faith. 
The Christian religion would not be discredited by the lack 
of miracles. 116 It no longer depends on such adventitious 
aids. The reason for the faith must be in the faith itself. 
No amount of evidence of an external kind could make 
true for us what does not commend itself otherwise to our 
spiritual reason and conscience. "If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise 
from the dead.' 5117 When Christ taught men to love God 
and their fellow-men, when He set forth the duty of for- 
bearance and the blessedness of forgiveness, His words bore 
their own stamp of divinity. Miracles would not make the 
Ten Commandments any more imperative nor the Beatitudes 
more true. Paul never mentions any of the Lord's alleged 

116 Mark 8 11, 12. 
nT Luke 16 31. 



The Healing of the Nations 127 

miracles as recorded by the Synoptists. He stakes the whole 
truth of Christianity on the person and teachings of Christ 
himself. In his Gospel, John regards the miracles as "signs" 
or symbols of spiritual truths; and in his First Epistle, 
where he states in its whole fulness his Christian moral phi- 
losophy, and in which he — the last and greatest teacher of 
the Christian Church — gives the final and finishing touches 
to the whole system of evangelical truth — he lays the entire 
emphasis on "the Word of life." In their writings the 
apostles are not merely rehearsing a creed which they have 
accepted on some authority outside themselves, when they 
affirm their belief in Christ ; they pour into their words the 
fresh confirmations of their own experience and use the 
language of religious certitude. "We know that the Son 
of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we 
know him that is true, and we are — both sympathetically and 
intelligently — in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus 
Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." 118 Our 
danger today lies not in over-credulity but rather in forget- 
ting that the Christ who is greater than all His miracles is 
still ever-present with us, carrying on His spiritual ministry 
of grace and truth and power as of old, pouring His life 
into that of humanity, and saving the world as fast as He 
can. Neither the uninformed outpourings of fanaticism, 
nor the cold negations of scepticism, nor yet the vacillations 
of the suspended judgment, now that the evidence is all in, 
can any longer meet the demands of the intellect or satisfy 
the cravings of the heart. 

118 1 John 5 20. 



CHAPTER V 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF WOMANHOOD 



The Holy Grail Reappears 

It is one Sir Percivale who tells the story. He was for- 
merly one of King Arthur's knights, but tired of that excit- 
ing life, he had put aside his armor and retired into an old 
monastery, there in quietness and seclusion, far away from 
Arthur's court, to end his days. He there became much at- 
tached to an aged fellow-monk named Ambrosius, who had 
spent the greater part of his life within those walls. Sir 
Percivale (or Peredur, said to mean 'steel suit') relates the 
whole story to Ambrosius, how that Joseph of Arimathea 
had brought with him to Britain the cup, 

"The cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with His own/' 

and how that, by reason of some mysterious virtue in that 
cup, 

"If a man 

Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once, 

By faith, of all his ills." 

But afterwards, because the times were evil, 

"The holy cup 
Was caught away to heaven, and disappear'd." 



A Convent Cell 

Sir Percivale had a sister, a devoted nun, and one of the 
most beautiful characters in the whole romance. It was now 
some five hundred years since the Holy Cup had been brought 

128 



The Healing of the Nations 129 

over to Glastonbury, and this maiden hears from her con- 
fessor for the first time the legend of the Holy Grail. For 
although her life was clean and her dreams pure she still 
would confess her sinfulness and unworthiness, and would 
also humbly and in broken accent voice her aspirations. Now 
when she heard from the lips of her father confessor — "a 
man well-nigh a hundred winters old" — the story of the 
holy thing and its miraculous healing virtues, and how it 
had vanished because of the general degeneracy, she was 
deeply and sadly impressed. The holy man, however, had been 
very confident that the Grail would appear again in Arthur's 
days, now that he had formed his guard of peace and honor, 
and his court was so pure, his people so well-disposed. But 
a sin broke out," the knights fell from virtue, and the Holy 
Cup did not come again. And still he hoped that it might 
come, 

"And heal the world of all their wickedness!" 

The maiden asked if it might not return in answer to 
her prayer. "What do I know," said he, "but that it might ! 
Thy heart is pure." And so she set herself to prayer, to 
fasts and alms, till she grew thin and pale. Earnestly and 
imploringly she prayed and severely she fasted, until at last 
the holy, rose-red vessel stole upon her vision in the evening 
light, and there fell upon her ear sweet sounds, as with the 
foreignness of heavenly melody. 

"And then the music faded, and the Grail 
Past, and the beam decay'd, and from the walls 
The rosy quiverings died into the night." 

The magic cup had been once more restored. She then sent 
for her brother, 

"And 'O my brother Percivale/ she said, 
'Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail.' " 

She fervently urges him to fast and pray and to persuade 
his fellow-knights to do likewise, that so the vision may be 
seen of them also, "and all the world be healed." Some of 
them do so, and for many a week. 



130 The Healing of the Nations 



In Arthur's Hall 

In Arthur's Hall the knights sat round the Table, leaving 
one seat vacant as that which the Lord had occupied and 
which was reserved for the promised ideal "maiden knight. " 
Whatever man else attempted to sit in it was lost. It was 
called therefore the Siege Perilous. In due time Sir Gala- 
had, "who never felt the kiss of love, nor maiden's hand in 
his," and who carried a "virgin heart" 119 through life, the 
youngest youth of them all, was brought to the knights by 
a mysterious old man clothed in white, and placed in the 
Siege Perilous. 

And behold, on a still summer night, as they were seated 
round the Table in Arthur's Hall, all at once they heard a 
sound as of thunder, and "in the thunder was a cry." Im- 
mediately the hall was lighted up by the brilliant shining 
of a silver beam streaming in from above, as if seven days 
of summer had been pressed into a few moments, and down 
the long beam the Holy Grail descends, but covered over 
with a "luminous cloud." The knights stood up together 
and stared each at the other like dumb men. The Holy Cup 
had again vanished. None of the noble knights had seen the 
Grail itself, because of the luminous cloud that covered it, 
save Sir Galahad only, the youngest and the purest of them 
all, whose armor was white and whose heart was pure. He 
had seen the Grail and heard a cry 

"O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow me." 

Sir Percivale, because he had not seen it, swore a vow 
that he would ride a twelvemonth and a day in quest of it. 
And Galahad swears the vow, and good Sir Bors, and Lance- 
lot swears (the mightiest of the knights), and Gawain swears, 
"and louder than the rest," and others also swear and bind 
themselves by that same vow. The king was absent from his 
hall while all this came to pass, he having gone in pursuit 
of a band of brigands that troubled his realm. On his return 
he was much distressed to learn of the vow which his knights 

119 Cf. Rev. 14 4. 



The Healing of the Nations 131 

had sworn and predicted many dark things that would befall 
his knights and betimes his realm. But, said he, 

"Go, since your vows are sacred, being made." 

So they departed every one his way. And when the 
time was up they then returned — but only a tithe of them, 
wasted and worn — to tell their tales as to what they had 
seen and what befell them on the way. But Galahad re- 
turns not, for he having seen the Grail the second time, has 
under its guidance passed away into the far spiritual city, 
there to be made a king. The silent Sir Bors has seen it, 
and so has Percivale afar off ; Lancelot and Gawain have not 
seen it at all. But of their adventures we shall hear more 
presently. Meanwhile let us consider a little further the 
means whereby the cup was restored after so long, so dreary, 
and so sad an interval. 

"The Pure in Heart" 

Sir Percivale' s Sister. The Holy Grail — the chalice that 
brimmed with the blood of God Incarnate — had disappeared 
from the earth, and did not come again. 

" 'O Father V ask'd the maiden, 'might it come 
To me by prayer and fasting?' 'Nay/ said he, 
' I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow.' ' 

Mark that well — "thy heart !" That was enough for her. 
She gave herself to prayer and fasting, fervent prayer, 
diligent fasting, mourning and lamenting because the days 
were evil, yet all the while humbly trusting that the Holy 
Grail might again be seen. And she soon bare in her emaci- 
ated body the marks of her consecration. One night, as 
she lay in her white little cell, she heard a sweet, startling 
sound as of a silver horn, and then suddenly through the 
cell there streamed a cold and glittering beam of heavenly 
light, and stealing down that silver beam of holy light, to 
her unspeakable joy, she saw the Holy Grail. And it was 
red, rose-red, throbbing as if alive, 

"Till all the white walls of her cell were dyed 
With rosy colors leaping on the wall." 



132 The Healing of the Nations 

Then the music and the light died into the night, leaving 
her to the darkness and her own thoughts. This is the 
form in which art has expressed one aspect of ideal woman- 
hood. Now all high art is true to the facts of life and 
nature. 

One of the most beautiful, because truthful, touches in 
this romance is the reappearance of the Holy Cup in answer 
to the devotion of a woman. Her heart was cleansed by 
fasts and prayers from all earthly desires and carnal pas- 
sions, and her vision clarified. Passions cloud the mind and 
make our vision dull and obscure, but "Jehovah lighteneth 
the eyes." 120 This law has been illustrated times without 
number in Shakespeare and all the great dramatists. The 
key is given to Macbeth in the witches' song at the opening 
of the play: — 

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair; 
Hover through the fog and filthy air." 

When the moral nature has become perverted and the 
moral sense is injured, there can be no clear perception of 
moral truth. We do not take a bad man's judgment on 
morals. To him who loves "the fog and the filthy air, 
fair is foul, and foul is fair." The quest of the Grail is 
not for him who calls evil good, and good evil. 121 In that 
murky atmosphere no clear vision can come. That is the 
moral both of Macbeth and of the Holy Grail. 

Right Thinking 

Bad thinking comes out of bad being. If you would think 
truly, live purely. Sensualism gives a false coloring to the 
distinction between right and wrong. The moment we begin 
to hunger after the seductions of this world, and to tamper 
with the first principles of morality, to condone evil or to 
despair of good, then fair becomes foul, and foul fair, and 
the truth is not in us, the vision of God is not for us. Burn 
the impure book, shun the man who suggests the unholy 
imagination, avoid witches, cultivate purity, pray and fast, 

^Prov. 29 13. 
** Isa. 5 20-22. 



The Healing of the Nations 133 

then will God begin to reveal to you the secret of His works 
and ways. It will not be long before the Holy Cup of 
Healing — the vision of God, the sense of His presence and 
power and favor comes to you also. 122 

The Sovereignty of Womanhood 

The insight of true genius, guided by the finest poetic 
feeling, is nowhere more clearly seen than in the story of 
Sir Percivale's sister, which bears witness to the special fit- 
ness and aptitude of woman, by the very constitution of 
her nature, to render the highest spiritual service to the 
world. How large a part has womanhood played in the 
work of the world's salvation ! What a conversation is that 
between two women in the hill-country of Judah ! How the 
mystic sympathy passes from hand to hand, from eye to 
eye, from voice to voice ! What divine communications, and 
yet how simple, how natural it all seems ! 123 Of woman's 
special susceptibility to religious impressions all the world 
is aware. Who can gauge the depths of a mother's emo- 
tions, 124 or tell the strength of a sister's instincts? 125 Who 
would not rather trust to woman's intuitions than to man's 
reasonings? On whose counsel and sympathy do we most 
lean in seasons of sadness and sorrow? Of course, man has 
a womanly part to his nature, which is as good as a mother 
to him, and whose promptings are often truer and safer 
than those of his more masculine self. Woman also has 
many manly qualities, which reveal themselves especially 
where duty calls or danger. The difference is one of degree 
and emphasis. 

In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock represents to me 
the hard theology, the forensic view of the atonement, which 
pictures God as a stern, irascible, inexorable Judge, or a 
relentless Creditor, whom nothing can appease but his 
"pound of flesh." But Portia! who is she? She is the 
human heart, which instinctively appeals against turning 
the universe into a mere law court, and which, when the 

122 Cf . Luke 2 25-38. 

123 Luke 1 39-56. 

124 2 Sam. 21 8-10. Cf . Tennyson, Rizpah; Luke 2 48-51. 

125 Exod. £ 7, 8; John 11 3, 32 f.; 12 2, 3. 



134 The Healing of the Nations 

cold, logical intellect cries AIVs Law! answers Yes; but AIVs 
Love, too! Portia represents the sympathetic, fatherly- 
motherly nature of God. 

In woman there is a predominance of the affections, the 
unreasoning consciousness of right, 126 the power of sym- 
pathy, self-sacrifice, and waiting, patient waiting. All this 
means power for service, for suffering, and an affinity for 
the true, the beautiful, and the good. Hence we never read 
that women were "called" to follow Christ. They needed 
no call. The dew waits for no voice to call it to the sun. 
Men required to be called; women only to be attracted. 

The Emotional Type: Mary Magdalene 

To the questioning disciples, slow to believe, Jesus said, 
"Handle me, and see, that it is I myself." But to Mary 
Magdalene, who instantly held Him by the feet and wor- 
shipped Him, He said, "Touch Me not," in order that her 
faith might retain its spiritual integrity, and to prevent 
it from becoming in any sense earthy or sensuous. "For I 
am not yet ascended unto My Father and your Father. 
Then shall you spiritually cling to Me with faith's persistent 
embrace. Cling not to Me now; but go unto My brethren, 
and say to them what thou hast seen and heard." Not 
even to the tearful Mary was it given to indulge in the 
affectionate but too selfish enjoyment of the high privilege 
vouchsafed to her, but rather must she hasten to bear the 
good tidings of great joy to His anxious and disconsolate 
disciples. Thus did she become the first preacher of the 
gospel of the resurrection to the world — the first to restore 
the ever-living, spiritual Christ to the despairing disciples. 
"Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth the disciples, I have 
seen the Lord." The glory had returned, the Cup of Salva- 
tion was again among men. 

The Practical Type: Florence Nightingale 

When Luther, in a season of faintheartedness, wept like 
a big child and was fit for nothing, it was Catherine von 
Bora who put to him the blunt question, Is God dead? until 
126 Cf. Matth. £7 19. 



The Healing of the Nations 135 

he felt much ashamed of himself. Three centuries before, in 
Luther's land, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, devoting all her 
revenues to the poor, spent her short life in fusing chivalry 
with the spirit of Christian charity and in creating a social 
conscience on the part of the rulers. In the dark days of 
war and slavery they never failed in bearing witness to 
the power of the Christian faith. There was Florence 
Nightingale, who, when the nations of Europe were en- 
gaged in mortal conflict; and Harriet B. Stowe, who, when 
the poor trampled slave thought that the gentle Christ must 
have been dead a long while, restored faith in a God of 
mercy and righteousness. Love imparted a healing virtue 
to the book of the one and to the bandages of the other. 
In a familiar passage, Wordsworth expresses his indebted- 
ness to his wise and gentle sister, who was the means of 
restoring faith to his soul at an important crisis in his life. 
At the dark close of the French Revolution, the poet lost 
almost all faith in God and goodness, and all hope for the 
regeneration of society. His soul was filled with despair. 

"Depressed, bewildered. . . . Then it was — 
Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good ! — 
That the beloved Sister in whose sight 
Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice 
Of sudden admonition . . . 
Maintained for me a saving intercourse 
With my true self. . . . 
She whispered still that brightness would return." 127 

Feminine Theology 

Of woman's faith, and her power to impart faith, the poet 
tells us when he says that as Sir Percivale's sister spake to 
Sir Galahad — 

"She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
On him, and he believed in her belief." 

Woman has often nursed the world through the fever 
of scepticism and despair, strengthened its heart, and sent 

127 The Prelude, Bk. xi. "France." 



136 The Healing of the Nations 

it forth about its work in the sweet sunlight and open air. 
And while men were engaged in manufacturing creeds, in 
torturing and burning their heterodox brethren, whom they 
sent "roaring out of one fire into another," it was the 
religion of woman that saved the credit of Christianity. 
Inside the frowning buttresses of dogmatic theology the 
heart of woman has built up for the world a religion of 
sympathy, reasonableness, and charity. Christ has never 
been crucified afresh — as has happened in many a dogmatic 
article of faith and in many acts of religious intolerance — 
but that holy women have stood over against the cross 
deploring the blindness and inhumanity of it. On many a 
creedal cross and on many a calvary of conscience has He 
been put to an open shame. But not even the daughters of 
Jerusalem could restrain their tears as He bore His grim 
burden along the Via Dolorosa. 

One could sometimes wish that a few Christian women 
would put their heads together and draw out a creed or 
declaration of faith for daily life, a working theory of 
human life for daily use. That it would have a very human- 
izing effect upon our rigid, scholastic, and soulless systems 
of theology, there cannot be the slightest doubt. Not that 
metaphysical conceptions of fundamental truths as set 
forth in the creeds and formularies of the Church have not 
an important place of their own and are of great historical 
value; but they leave much to be desired as inspirational 
documents for the study and practice of the general body 
of Christians. 

The Christian Conception of Marriage 

"The real religion of the world," according to Wendell 
Holmes, "comes from women much more than from men — 
from mothers most of all." And was not this what Keble 
meant when he said that Mary's bosom was the throne of 
Jesus ? And here we are reminded of what has been charged 
as a serious defect in all medieval romance. Modern critics 
have taken exception to Malory's representation of celibacy 
and virginity as the highest ideal of life, even though it be 
spiritual and holy as that of Galahad or Percivale or Perci- 



The Healing of the Nations 137 

vale's sister. And it is doubtless true that that ideal is 
best realized, not in monastery or convent, but in the mar- 
riage relation. In all Christian writings, and in the best 
pagan literature as well, the family is set forth as the first 
unit in the State, and the home as the chief theatre of 
divine education. But Malory must be judged in the light 
of the age in which he lived and of the sentiments which 
then prevailed. His ideas, however, are far in advance 
of those of previous romancers concerning the sacredness 
of the marriage bond, as e. g., in his delineation of the noble 
qualities of Arthur's mother; and in other social relations 
the whole tone of his narratives is one of admiration for 
the higher standard of morals wherever exemplified, while it 
is usually left to the story itself to carry its own moral. 
Caxton, in his remarkable Preface, in which he expresses 
the aim and motive of both author and publisher, has pointed 
out that "all is written for our doctrine, and for to beware 
that we fall not to vice nor sin, but to exercise and follow 
virtue." Malory thus helped in strengthening the moral 
impulse imparted by Walter Map to English literature. 
Other masters then followed in quick succession, voicing and 
exalting the Christian conception of morality based on the 
value of the human soul and the sacredness of personality. 

The ideal of marriage, as distinguished from and superior 
to all other forms of love and chastity is set forth with 
increasing clearness and power by Spenser, Shakespeare, 
Milton, Tennyson, and Browning. And who that has read 
Ruskin's Queens' Gardens, 12 * Patmore's Angel in the 
House, or Woolner's My Beautiful Lady, has not fancied 
himself walking amid the silvered scenery and wooing fra- 
grance of heavenly gardens? Should any man insist that 
they are only ideals, that in these exquisite writings we 
have impracticable patterns of womanhood, and that we 
look in vain for the originals, or even fair copies thereof, 
in real life, then we can only pity him in that he has passed 
through childhood and youth so blind to the virtues of 
one that was as God to him in the days that come not again. 
Lord Tennyson is never tired of reminding us that mother- 
hood is woman's crowning glory. 

128 Sesame and Lilies ; Lect. II. 



138 The Healing of the Nations 

Paul and Women 

From some of his writings, one might conclude that Paul's 
ideas on the woman question were somewhat antiquated. He 
certainly was hard on them once in a while. They must 
not teach nor even speak in the churches ; they could only 
listen in silence, and learn what they could. If they showed 
any incipient intelligence and wished to learn further, "let 
them ask their own husbands at home." 129 On no account 
should they try to domineer over their husbands. They 
must be kept in proper subjection and taught to know their 
own place. He told them how to dress, how to wear their 
hair. There must be nothing used for "effect" — no stibium, 
no cosmetics, no jewelry. They must attract no attention 
in any way. In fact, they should obliterate themselves as 
far as possible, and quietly plod along at their humble 
duties in the home. For man was the first on the scene, 
and woman was only created to wait on her lord, — a curious 
but interesting argument. "And Adam was not beguiled" — 
a palpably biased statement which only aggravates man's 
guilt — "but the woman being inveigled hath fallen into 
transgression." 130 She should be reminded of that, he 
thought, when she is at all tempted to overstep her limits 
and limitations. It is not recorded whether the Corinthian 
women were convinced by such arguments. It is a wonder 
that women should have had anything to do with him. But 
he seems to have got along with them very well, better than 
they did with each other sometimes. 131 He did more than 
any other man of his generation to honor and 
elevate woman, — he assigned them official positions of in- 
fluence in the church, and he found among them his best 
helpers and friends. Had he lived in our day, he would 
undoubtedly have proved the foremost champion in the 
cause of woman's emancipation. 

Motherhood 

In the above passage he casually mentions the traditional 
notion respecting woman's physical and mental inferiority 

129 1 Cor. U 35. 180 1 Tim. 2 14. M1 Phil. 4 2. 



The Healing of the Nations 139 

and her primacy in guilt. And then in a flash of inspira- 
tion he says, "Nevertheless she shall be saved through her 
child-bearing", 132 that is, she shall make atonement for her 
original transgression and shall save her reputation and 
self-respect through the child-bearing, and by keeping faith- 
fully and simply to her allotted sphere as wife and mother. 
Her recovery from the "curse" of subjection was to come 
through the penal suffering of maternity, 133 and as God 
had given her the greater suffering He would also give her 
the greater joy. The divinest service and holiest function 
of woman is to bring sound and healthy children into the 
world and to "nurture them in the chastening and admoni- 
tion of the Lord." 134 

"She shall be saved by means of the child-bearing," that 
being her special office and privilege, a service productive 
of the grand result whereby salvation was accomplished, a 
service leading up to and centring in and glorified by the 
advent of the Child of woman born, of God begotten. By 
the supposed instrument of her punishment (an erroneous 
and unscientific Hebrew tradition), 135 — by the same shall 
she and all the world be saved. 136 And while he insisted 
on the subordination of women to men, no one has ever 
stated more strongly or clearly their need of each other, 
for "nevertheless", said he, "neither is the woman without 
the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord." 137 
The most perfect and ideal human relationship he found in 
a marriage of mutual love and mutual dependence, where 
both the man and woman unite as one in the training and 
discipline of the child. 

"The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf d or godlike, bond or free: 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, mover with him to one goal. . . . 
For woman is not undevelopt man, 

132 1 Tim. 2 15. 

133 Gen. 3 16; Ephes. 5 22. 

134 Ephes. 6 4. Cf . In Memoriam, xl. 

135 Gen. 3 16. 

138 Gen. 3 15; Matth. 1 91; Gal. 4 4. 
187 1 Cor. 11 11. 



140 The Healing of the Nations 

But diverse . . . his dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow." 138 

Paul saw in the marriage relation the most perfect symbol 
of the mystical union between Christ and the Church (Ephes. 
5 25). 

Woman in the Early Church 

In spite of certain restrictions, Christian women enjoyed 
a freedom and independence not to be found outside of the 
early Church. In all acts of public worship, including the 
Agape (love-feast) and the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) 
women enjoyed equal privileges with men, and in the general 
activities of the church they played a great part. In times 
of peace they were faithful in service; in the dark days of 
persecution they inspired others by their courage, as they 
went on "doing well, and not being put in fear by any 
terror." 139 The Epistle to the Hebrews was written for 
the encouragement of Christians who were passing through 
terrible sufferings. Its author was a deep, sweet thinker, a 
laureate of sorrow, and the voice is as of a mother comfort- 
ing her children. It is no wonder that many expositors 
have referred its authorship to Apollos, who was instructed 
by Priscilla. 140 And Harnack, as is well known, assigns its 
authorship to Priscilla herself. The Fourth Gospel also is 
supposed by some scholars to have been "inspired" by the 
mother of Jesus, who lived beneath John's roof-tree, 141 
where in quiet hours they talked and "pondered" 142 and 
brooded upon Him who was made flesh beneath her heart. 
Part of the secret of its simplicity of diction and profundity 
of thought might be thus explained, although she had doubt- 
less heard and known some things "too sweet, too subtle for 
the ear of man." 

Woman in the Middle Ages 

Women kept the light of Christian faith and intelligence 
burning through the darkness of the Middle Ages in church 

138 Tennyson, The Princess; A Medley, vii. 

139 1 Pet. 8 6. 141 John 19 26, 27. 

140 Acts 18 26. i4a Luke 2 19. 



The Healing of the Nations 141 

and school and home and abbey. Imperial courts and power- 
ful families of Europe felt their influence and were con- 
verted to the faith. And it is not to be supposed that Paul 
meant they should forever hold their peace because a few 
garrulous women just emerging out of paganism at 
Corinth — the city of the hierodule — chattered 143 in church, 
and were forward in asking questions. Compelled to keep 
silence in our churches, Christian women have latterly taken 
to writing brilliant theological novels and philosophical 
treatises and beautiful songs which, to say the least, are far 
more illuminating and more human than the ponderous 
tomes of the Schoolmen and the hair-splitting disquisitions 
of Councils. And still more recently they have captured 
pulpit and rostrum, parliament and counting-house, law- 
court and laboratory, and are having their innings in almost 
every department of service. 

The Emancipation of Woman 

The more thoroughly Christianized a nation becomes, the 
larger the place accorded woman in the life of the com- 
munity. In 1915 there were approximately eight million 
women workers in the United States, and during the war 
one and a half million additional women became industrial 
workers. These multiplied activities have given them greater 
independence and will still further promote their emancipa- 
tion. The results in all branches of labor have not been 
equally satisfactory. While woman easily outvies man in 
the patient endurance of pain she is more susceptible than 
he is to fatigue, in the proportion of 100 to 128. 144 The 
law of adaptation and survival will in due course determine 
her peculiar fitness for different vocations at which she 
can permanently stay. Their entrance will no doubt have 
a humanizing influence on all industries and callings. 

Viscountess Astor, member of the British Parliament, 
writes : — 

"Out of the havoc and destruction of the Great War which 
has passed over the world like a cyclone, leaving social, political, 

143 1 Cor. U 34, 35 (lalein, 'to chatter,' 'talk'). 
144 Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency, Ch. I. 



142 The Healing of the Nations 

and spiritual changes in its wake, certain new hopes are at 
length beginning to grow. . . . One of these new conceptions 
is the ideal of cooperation between nations, the road to which 
has been pointed by the League of Nations, the Washington Con- 
ference, and the Irish settlement. Another is the ideal of co- 
operation between men and women as comrades working to- 
gether on an equal plane, for the good not only of their own 
homes but of humanity. . . . Women are, I think, the natural 
and practical idealists. It seems to be their special tasks to 
hand on the moral and spiritual standards of their country and 
of their age to the next generation. They are, in fact, the very 
core of the civilization of each nation, with its life in their keep- 
ing. The new call which has come to them does not brush this 
great trust aside; it merely widens its scope. . . . If, as we are 
so often told, woman's place is the home, the opportunity has 
now come to her to make the home indeed her own concern. It 
is her responsibility to see that her home is made safe for her 
children, and if she is to do this she must look outside her home 
to the affairs of her town, her country, and the world. . . . That 
is why we want lots of the right kind of women on every sort 
of public body." 

The Housekeeper 

Woman's role in the past has been one of subordination. 
Subordination, however, does not necessarily imply inferior- 
ity. Very often it is simply a matter of order and good 
government. But without any suggestion of superiority or 
inferiority we must recognize a natural and abiding differ- 
ence between man and woman. Their interests and points 
of view are not antagonistic; they are just "different", and 
also complementary. Edwin Markham says that woman is 
needed in national and civic housekeeping as much as in 
home housekeeping, and for exactly the same reasons. And 
that is why social workers who have studied the needs of 
women and children are among the strongest supporters of 
woman suffrage. Mrs. Pauline O. Field, of New York, 
lately appointed to the district attorney's staff, says : — 

"The woman who is not true to herself is without real success, 
friends, or admiration. The woman who wants to play the 
game in a man's way does not understand or appreciate her own 
sex. Woman's natural endowment tends toward passivity, of 
course. There is no question about that, that she has the ability 



The Healing of the Nations 143 

'to bear, to sustain, to carry/ even though she suffer. That is 
the great wonder of woman! Though that is a negative quality- 
it equals man's positive achievements. We all have reached the 
status today where sex is not involved at all. Woman can apply 
herself diligently to her ideals, and the question of her being a 
woman has nothing to do with her success or lack of it." 

John Stuart Mill states that but for his wife's compre- 
hension of moral and social influences he should have had "a 
very insufficient perception of the mode in which the con- 
sequences of the inferior position of women intertwine them- 
selves with all the evils of existing society and with all the 
difficulties of human improvement." 145 In Anglo-Saxon 
countries, at least, there is a fairly general agreement that 
while it may be true that there are some services the woman 
cannot render to the State, there are others that she alone 
can discharge, others that she can best discharge, and that 
sex should not be a disability in political life. Two things 
we should bear in mind — the one positive, the other negative. 
First, that women have human interests, rights, and re- 
sponsibilities, a right to live their own life, all of which means 

"As far as in us lies. . . . 
We'll leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood." 146 

And secondly, that in the design and process of creation 
man and woman are different. "Male and female created 
He them." 

"Could we make her as the man 

Sweet Love were slain. . . . 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 

The man be more of woman, she of man. . . . 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words." 147 

It is only a Lady Macbeth who prays to be unsexed. Let 
men cultivate the faculties, gifts, and instincts peculiar to 

145 J. S. Mill, Autobiography, p. 244. 
148 The Princess; A Medley, vii. 
™Ibid. 



144 The Healing of the Nations 

themselves, and women those distinctive of their order, then 
shall "our sons be as plants grown up in their youth," 
healthy, strong, supple, flourishing in God's open air; "and 
our daughters as corner-pillars carved after the fashion 
of a palace," 148 distinguished for their polished graceful- 
ness and quiet beauty, after the manner of the exquisitely 
sculptured Caryatides of Greece and Egypt. 149 Heroism 
will be no longer insolent, nor saintliness sickly. "The light 
of the righteous rejoiceth" in its own brightness, Solomon 
says. Let man shine, let woman shine ; let them, like binary 
stars wed their lights and rejoice in each other's peculiar 
power for service. 

Sex-Relation 

It is now maintained on biological grounds that the sta- 
bility and perpetuity of the race depends upon woman, its 
progress upon man. Untold ages before there was sexual or 
conjugal reproduction, in the female of every species of 
plant and animal types of life were conserved and perpetu- 
ated through agamic processes. The fertilized cell is the 
one unfailing link in the eternal procession of life from the 
remote and unknown beginning. The sexes differ in certain 
aspects of brain power, the more aggressive, analytic, and 
inventive predominating in man, the more receptive, co- 
hesive, and conservative in woman. Hence the practical 
achievements of the one and the religious temperament of 
the other. Woman's peculiar mission and noblest function it 
is to inspire faith among men, to perpetuate the sense and 
vision of God, and to infuse into human society the spirit of 
Christ, — to make for the Holy Grail a tabernacle among 
men. This she can do more effectively while engaged in the 
world's work than in morbid brooding over her sins — whether 
real or imaginary — within the bare walls of a convent cell. 
St. Catharine of Siena was better engaged as a peacemaker 
and helper of the sick and sinful than as a mystic and ascetic 
Sister of Penance. While man goes forth to his task with 
the glittering weapon which destroys evil and promotes 
progress, to the woman's care has been committed the sacred 

148 Ps. 144 12. 

149 Josephus, Wars of the Jews, V. v. 6. 



The Healing of the Nations 145 

medicinal cup which cures and by which man's faith is 
nourished. 150 

Dante and Beatrice 

In Dante, the personifications either of a special virtue 
or of a high ideal of life are always women. Beatrice rep- 
resents divine love, and it was she who led Dante to God. 151 
Her eyes lifted and guided him from light to light from 
Purgatory and through the Ten Heavens. When, at sight 
of her, he felt the motions of his former earthly passion and 
fastened on her "too fixed a gaze," 152 she veiled her face 
admonishingly, for if he would rise with her into the higher 
realms his love must be free from all earthly alloy. 153 
"These eyes are not thy only Paradise." And when through 
penitence he recovered himself her eyes became again relu- 
cent with the living light eternal. His vision became more 
clear or obscure according to the quality of his thoughts. 
And when his mind became so gratefully fixed on God "that 
in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed," she smiled her words of 
praise. So was he led on and "translated to higher salva- 
tion" until the vision of the White Rose — 

"The saintly host 
Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride — " 

dawned on him. When later he beheld Beatrice seated on 
her throne, to her he prayed, 

"Preserve towards me thy magnificence, 

So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed, 
Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body." 

He then is bidden to look into Mary's face — 

"The face that unto Christ 
Hath most resemblance; for its brightness only 
Is able to prepare thee to see Christ." 

In the next and final stage the union of the human soul with 
God is complete. 

150 Cf. A. Nutt, Legend of the Holy Grail, iii. 

151 Paradise, XVIII, 4. 

152 Purgatory, XXXII, 9. 

153 Paradise, XVIII, 19. 



CHAPTER VI 



CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM 

An Agricultural Myth 

A Celtic Myth. It would take us too far afield to dwell 
on the supposed pagan origin of the legend of the Holy 
Grail and its gradual transformation into a poem charged 
with Christian symbolism and mysticism. It may be noted, 
however, that in its original elements it probably presents 
a conception of life and nature older than that of the 
earliest religions of which we have any record, and forms 
part of an agricultural mythus in which the fairies are 
peasant deities who have sway over the elements of nature, 
the aspects of the moon, tides, and vegetation. They are 
represented as airy, animistic spirits, on whose good will the 
health and harvests of mankind depend, and to whom tithes 
are paid of the produce of field and garden, of flock and 
herd. They are the lineal descendants of the mysterious 
Tuatha de Danann of Irish mythical literature. To their 
agency the peasant owed his bread and corn and milk and 
wine, — bread and wine, as the choicest products of nature, 
being used sacramentally as symbols of man's dependence 
upon and obligations to the pastoral and rural divinities. 
These the people worshipped, and to them they offered both 
animal and human sacrifices in return for their favors. 
All the members of the community shared the flesh of the 
victim and thus entered into communion and covenant with 
their god. The goal of religion was the identification of the 
worshipper, the oneness of the soul, with the god. By 
wild, orgiastic rites the people wakened the dormant spirits 
of vegetable life and made the seeds sprout; "their frenzied 
dances quickened the life of vegetation by 'sympathetic 

146 



The Healing of the Nations 147 

magic\" 154 Traces of similar cults are found elsewhere ; in- 
deed this belief and the ritual founded upon it were com- 
mon to most other peoples of the early ages, certainly to 
all the European races. In some instances the gods had 
intercourse with mortal maidens, and the semi-divine sons 
born of such union became the heroes and eponymous foun- 
ders of races or clans, as in the stories of the Irish Cuchu- 
lainn, the Welsh Bran, the Greek Dionysus, and, in some 
versions, of Arthur. 155 

The Sancgreal 

By an easy transition the magic food-producing vessel 
of the old Pagan sagas became in the Christian legends the 
Holy Grail, the cup of the Last Supper, the sacramental 
symbol of the Christian faith. The magic caldron is met 
with in the mythology of nearly every people, such as the 
caldron of Dagda, "the good god," the caldron of Bran the 
Blessed, and Ceridwen's caldron of inspiration or wisdom 
(which goes back to the earliest Celtic mythology). 156 
Sometimes it is the symbol of fertility and abundance ; some- 
times a cup of balsam, the washings of which restore sick, 
maimed, and wounded to complete health. Sometimes the 
drink which it held had power to revivify the dead. 

When Sir Percivale met Sir Ector and they fought until each 
had almost slain the other, "Percivale kneeled down and made 
his prayer devoutly unto Almighty Jesu; for he was one of the 
best knights of the world that at that time was, in whom the very 
faith stood most in. Right so there came by the holy vessel of 
the Sancgreal with all manner of sweetness and savor, but they 
could not readily see who that bare the vessel, but Sir Percivale 
had a glimmering of the vessel, and of the maiden that bare it, 
for he was a perfect clean maiden. And forthwithal they both 
were as whole of hide and limb as ever they were in their life 
days; then they gave thankings to God with great mildness. 
O Jesu ! said Sir Percivale, what may this mean that we be thus 
healed, and right now we were at the point of dying? I wot 
full well, said Sir Ector, what it is. It is an holy vessel that is 

154 A. Fairbanks, Handbook of Greek Religion, p. 242. 

155 Cf . Gen. 6 1, 2. 

158 Sir John Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 94, 551. 



148 The Healing of the Nations 

borne by a maiden, and therein is a part of the holy blood of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, blessed might He be ! but it may not be seen, 
said Sir Ector, but if it be by a perfect man. Truly, said Sir 
Percivale, I saw a damsel, as me thought, all in white, with a 
vessel in both her hands, and forthwithal I was whole/' 157 

At the Feast of Pentecost, "every knight sat in his own place 
as they were toforehand. . . . Then there entered into the hall 
the holy Graile covered with white samite, but there was none 
might see it, nor who bare it. And there was all the hall full 
filled with good odours, and every knight had such meats and 
drinks as he best loved in this world: and when the holy Graile 
had been borne through the hall, then the holy vessel departed 
suddenly, that they wist not where it became. And then the 
king yielded thankings unto God of his good grace that he had 
sent them. Certes, said the king, we ought to thank our Lord 
Jesu greatly, for that he hath shewed us this day at the reverence 
of this high feast of Pentecost." 158 It was then that the knights 
made "the avow and promise to labour a twelve-month and a 
day, or more if need be, in the quest of the Sancgreal." 

A Beautiful Inst met 

The legend in its latest form was readily seized upon 
by poets and painters and musicians as a fitting vehicle 
for certain moral and spiritual ideas, nor has anyone ex- 
pressed more perfectly than Lord Tennyson its symbolic 
suggestiveness. It may seem a fantastic and unnatural 
thing to associate a cup shaped out of a most precious 
stone with the story of a homeless, penniless peasant who 
was about to pay the death penalty as a public criminal. 
And yet it was no more unnatural than the beautiful in- 
stinct which led a greatly forgiven woman to anoint His 
feet with liquid nard, very precious, and to wipe them with 
her loose tresses. 159 It is the instinct which has led the 
true worshipper in all ages to devote of the best of all his 
possessions, and not "the residue thereof," 160 to his God, — 
pure gold, the best of the oil, vintage, grain, cattle, oxen, 
together with the firstborn — the fruit of his body. 161 It 

157 Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. XI, Ch. xiv. 

158 Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. XIII, Ch. vii. 
169 Mark U 3; John 12 3. 

160 Isa. 44 17. 

161 Num. 18 12, 29; 1 Sam. 15 15; Mic. 6 6, 7. 



The Healing of the Nations 149 

was only in times of degeneracy that anything less was 
offered. 162 

New Uses for Old Material 

Then note, further, that the precious gem that once be- 
longed to His now dethroned enemy — a relic of rebellion — 
is now converted to holy uses. Saved from destruction the 
virtuous stone becomes a sacred relic, the symbol and agent 
of health and immortality. So is it when the gifts, the 
talents and powers which have been employed in the service 
of self and sin are consecrated to Christian service, when 
the energy, cleverness, and knowledge which were put to 
evil uses have been redeemed and sanctified by a new and 
holy purpose, or as when the melody that used to stir 
up evil thoughts or passions is wedded to some pure and 
noble sentiment, song and singer being converted together. 
God claims the gift of speech, the wit and humor, 163 the 
singing voice, the sound judgment, the learning, the power 
of organization that have been used in business and for 
gain, to be devoted as unreservedly to His service as ever 
they were to our own. Physical strength may thus be 
transformed into spiritual power. The gospel summons 
the fleshly organism to higher uses than acrobatic feats 
and the vulgar triumphs of the prize-ring. Language that 
had been prostituted in the service of the scurrilous novelist 
and sordid versifier has been rescued and converted into 
gems of speech, vehicles of the divine economy of grace. 
The mystic emerald cup was truly a fitting symbol of such 
trophies of redemption. 

Symbols 

The Magic Touch. Lord Tennyson describes in many a 
jeweled phrase the various benefits derived from seeing or 
touching the sacred chalice. Mark, first, the effect of men's 
contact with the Grail. 

"If a man 
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once, 
By faith, of all his ills." 

laa Mal. 1 7, 8; 8 8, 9. 
163 Cf . 1 Kings 18 27. 



150 The Healing of the Nations 

Does it seem unreasonable to attribute such healing or 
prophylactic virtues to any material thing? We are now 
dealing with symbols. We have no purely spiritual lan- 
guage or vocabulary by means of which to express spiritual 
things, and must therefore make use of material symbols. 
A symbol is something that stands for an idea or a thought, 
just as the universe itself is a symbol of God's thought. 
We have symbols of man's dependence upon and communion 
with God in the tree of life in Paradise, the manna in the 
wilderness, the bread and wine in the Eucharist. "This 
cup is the new covenant in my blood." 164 That blood be- 
speaks the reality of Christ's human life, the wholeness and 
merit of His sacrifice. Similar symbols of spiritual truths 
we have in the rainbow, 165 the paschal lamb, the brazen 
serpent, and the Shekinah. Christ used the common things 
of life — light, bread, water, wine, lilies — to lift men's 
thoughts to God. 

The Eucharist 

Through the consecrated elements on the Lord's Table 
Divine love is trying to say something to sinful man, the 
Divine life is seeking to pour of itself into the life of human- 
ity. In the holy sacrament our memory is awakened, our 
emotion stirred, and our will sanctified and energized in a 
renewal of purpose. The springs of life are touched and 
purified. We are quickened into newness of life. All of 
which makes for health of spirit, mind, and body. We thus 
receive strength for better living and cleansing for clearer 
vision. The sacrament bestows no blessing ex opere oper- 
ator i. e. by the mere mechanical performance of the physical 
act, but only by the spiritual appropriation of the benefits. 
As we meditate on the holy lessons of the Lord's life and 
death, as by faith we identify ourselves with Him in His 
life and spirit and purpose, as there is formed in us the 
mind, the will, the character of Christ, we grow from weak- 
ness into strength, from sickness into health, and from sin- 
fulness into holiness. By a process of assimilation His life 
becomes ours. "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My 

1M Luke#£ 20. 
1K Gen. 9 13-17. 



The Healing of the Nations 151 

blood abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father 
sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth 
me, he also shall live because of me." 166 

The Eucharist is a "banquet of the most heavenly food," 
for the nourishment of our spiritual life. Even as the cruci- 
fix by the roadside in the St. Bernard Pass tells the climber 
that the hospice is near at hand, so is the cross the symbol 
of God's hospitality. 167 

"The principal effect of this Sacrament is to preserve in the 
soul the life of grace. The Eucharist is, according to the 
Council of Trent, the divine medicine which purifies the soul 
from venial, and preserves her from mortal sins. Tt is of such 
efficacy/ says St. Vincent Ferrer, 'that it delivers from all sin 
those who receive it with the proper disposition. . . .' There is 
no better means, according to St. Teresa, for becoming perfect 
in virtue than frequent communion. ... St. Francis de Sales 
says, 'Communicate, therefore, frequently, and as frequently 
as you can. . . / To humility unite an act of contrition and 
hope, confidently expecting that Jesus Christ, when he comes 
into your soul, will enrich you with his graces. . . . You must 
excite an ardent desire of receiving Jesus Christ in the Holy 
Sacrament. To nourish the soul, this celestial bread must be 
eaten with hunger. He who receives it with the strongest de- 
sire, receives from it the greatest graces. St. Francis de Sales 
used to say, that he who gives himself to us only through love, 
should be received only through love." 168 

"The benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively 
faith we receive that holy Sacrament; (for then we spiritually 
eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood; then we dwell in 
Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with 
us. . . . We are very members incorporate in the mystical body 
of the Son of God, which is the blessed company of all faithful 
people." 169 

The Sacramental Formula 

As believers partake of these holy mysteries (symbols), 
the pledges of God's love in Christ, they enjoy a holy com- 
munion in a nature which is common to Him and them. 

166 John 6 56, 57. Cf. Ecclus. 24 21; Jer. 15 16. 

187 Cf . Ps. 23 5, 6. 

168 The Treasury of the Sacred Heart, "On Communion." 

189 The Book of Common Prayer, "The Communion." 



152 The Healing of the Nations 

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion 
of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it 
not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, 
who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake 
of the one bread." 170 We may differ in our interpretation 
of the symbols and formulas, "This is My body. This is 
My blood." But whether we accept the symbolical ("dy- 
namic") view, or "transubstantiation," or "consubstantia- 
tion," or the "sacramental union" (Lutheran) theory, all 
will agree with St. Augustine that the true eating of the 
body of Christ consists in believing. "Believe," said he, 
"and thou hast eaten." As the cup represents the blood — 
the life — of Christ, so the sacrament is the blood — or life — 
covenant that symbolizes the unity of man with God. To 
believe that the body and blood of Christ are really and 
locally present in the Lord's Supper is not essential to the 
true doctrine of the Real Presence, but rather contradicts 
it, for that w r ould be intermittent and mechanical. And the 
real presence is that which is experienced in the hearts of 
men and abideth for ever. 171 The ever-living Christ is the 
ever-present Comrade. The Lord's Table is the meeting- 
place of differing creeds, where they fuse, lose their op- 
position, and become one prevailing force. There we forget 
our theological differences ; we are in contact with one and 
the same spiritual energy. Well may it be called an Eucha- 
rist — a "thanksgiving" memorial feast of love. It speaks 
of the forgiveness of sins, of the "blood poured out for many 
unto remission of sins," of deliverance from guilt, from 
remorse, from the stain and power of sin, of restoration to 
right relations to God, a cleansing from all unrighteous- 
ness, 172 and thus we partake of it "to our great and end- 
less comfort." 

"The Cup of Blessing" 

Where is the true believer, be he Catholic, Lutheran, 
Zwinglian, or an}^ other, who has not felt the sacramental 
solemnity, the oath-pledge against evil? The cup of bless- 

170 1 Cor. 10 16, IT. 

ln Matth. 26 28; John 14 23; 15 5. 

172 Matth. 26 28; I John 1 9. 



The Healing of the Nations 153 

ing comes to us, like the live coal in the hand of the seraph 
touching the prophet's lips, reconsecrating us once more 
for the service of Christ. In nature itself we have a faint 
adumbration of this truth. While every transgressor of 
natural law has sooner or later to pay the penalty, yet the 
vis medicatrix naturalis, the healing and recuperating en- 
ergy in nature, speaks of a principle of grace that pene- 
trates and pervades the universe. In the moral world, as 
in the physical, God forgives — obliterates — all of sin that 
disturbs our personal relations to Him as Father, and gives 
us power to work off evil consequences entailed by evil ways. 
The sense of God's favor "soothes our sorrows," and by 
the power of His redeeming grace He "heals our wounds." 
This stupendous truth is expressed in varying phrase and 
under various figures. Sin is said to be "blotted out" (Ps. 
51 9; Isa. 18 25; U 22), "covered" (Ps. 32 1 ; 85 2), "re- 
moved" (Ps. 103 11, 12), "washed away" (Ps. 51 2), 
"borne or taken away" (Isa. 27 9; Hos. ll 2; John 1 29), 
"cast out of sight" (Isa 38 17; Micah 7 19), "passed by" 
(Micah 7 18). We are restored to a right and natural 
relation to God (Luke 15 22-24; Rom. 8 1, 2, 16; 2 Cor. 
5 17-19). "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
Himself." The redemption which the soul calls for is ef- 
fected and focused in one comprehensive historic act of 
eternal import. That is the very heart of the gospel — the 
actual historic mediation of grace and strength from 
Christ — the act of God in Christ whereby the soul is liber- 
ated through the control of the holy love of God, of which 
the sacrament of the Eucharist is the effective sign and 
seal. Mediated through the New Testament, and through 
the Church and its sacraments, the work of Christ becomes 
through faith the supreme reality of our own consciousness. 
"Our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ : where- 
fore let us keep perpetual feast." 173 Chrysostom says that 
"all the life of a Christian should be one festival because 
of the superabundance of blessings bestowed upon him." 
And his own last words were, "Thanks be to God for every- 
thing." 

173 1 Cor. 5 7, 8. 



154 The Healing of the Nations 

"Come ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish, 
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel: 
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; 
Earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal. ,, 

Calvary interprets and fulfils the symbolic Shekinah. Here 
we have the vision of a friendly God — the God that ought 
to be, and is — the helper of the helpless, hope of the hope- 
less. Here, too, have many who had been despaired of and 
had despaired of themselves come with a foretaste of hell's 
own bitterness already in their mouth, have taken the cup 
of salvation and gone forth with the light of hope on their 
brows, the joy of heaven in their souls. 174 By the thrust and 
thrill of the Holy Spirit in their hearts they have known 
themselves to be the children of God. 175 

Properties of the Grail 

Note, secondly, the effect of Christ's contact with the 
Holy Grail. The miraculous virtues of this cup were ac- 
counted for by the fact that Christ drank from it at the 
Last Supper and that later it received His blood. In some 
of the versions the properties of the Grail are of a purely 
physical nature, while others attribute to it a remarkable 
spiritual power. The Jews, suspecting Joseph, who had 
taken down Christ's body from the cross, of having also 
stolen away the body, put him into prison where they pro- 
posed to starve him. There Christ appears to him and 
hands him the Grail, by which he is sustained for forty 
years (some say forty-two) without food or drink. 

When Joseph came to Britain, there came with him four 
thousand people, all of whom were fed by ten loaves placed 
on the table, on the head of which was the Grail. And we 
have already seen how it filled the king's court with per- 
fumes as it entered, and the tables with every kind of meat 
that could be desired. When it came in, there was not one 
of the knights that could say a single word. When it went 
out, they all recovered their speech. Then, again, we read 
that by its means Joseph is enabled to distinguish between 

174 Cf. the Hallel Psalms of the Jewish Ritual (113-118). 

175 Rom. 8 16. 



The Healing of the Nations 155 

those who had kept themselves pure and those who had 
defiled themselves with sin. And in some of its later forms, 
the legend gives prominence to the sacramental nature of 
the Grail. 

The allegorical merit of the legend consists chiefly in its 
suggestion of the Divine fulness (pleroma) of life in 
Christ, 176 a doctrine to which the chief prominence is given 
in all the New Testament writings. And not only is it sug- 
gestive of the all-fulness that dwelt in himself, but also of the 
healing virtue or other beneficent power which He imparted 
to all who by faith came in contact with Him, and of the 
incidental blessings which invariably seem to have attended 
His ministry. 

Apocryphal Literature 

In the apocryphal literature of the early Church we continu- 
ally meet with legends of a like kind with that of the Holy Grail, 
most of them of a fanciful and superstitious character, with a 
few which may justly lay claim to some historical basis. E. g., 
The Apocryphal Acts (of Paul, Peter, John, Andrew and 
Thomas), while almost entirely worthless as history, are of very 
great value as throwing light on the beliefs, customs, and forms 
of worship and church government of the Christians of the first 
and second centuries. In their account of the apostles they 
reveal an abnormal and unhealthy taste for the supernatural 
and miraculous. They are for the most part out of touch with 
reality and bear unmistakable traces of the influence of its 
pagan environment upon the Christian church, both in matters 
of faith and practice. They are deeply tinged with the Hellenic 
spirit which reveled in the miraculous. They evince a pro- 
found reverence for the apostles as custodians of the Christian 
"mysteries," 177 and these legends were freely invented as a 
testimony to their supernatural status. There assuredly was 
much more known concerning the apostles than is contained in 
the Canonical Writings, and these authentic traditions would 
be preserved in Christian communities, to be only too soon mixed 
up with legendary fabrications. There is some substratum of 
historical fact, for example, in the episode of Paul's association 
with Thecla, as the existence of her noble protectress Tryphaena 
is established by coins. The few grains of historical fact are, 

178 1 Cor. 4 1. 
177 Col. 1 19. 



156 The Healing of the Nations 

however, almost lost in the enormous mass of legendary over- 
growth. Eusebius rejected these writings as "absurd and 
impious/' and Augustine speaks of them as the work of "cob- 
blers of fables. " "Whole generations of Christians/' Harnack 
says, "yes, whole Christian nations were intellectually blinded 
by the dazzling appearance of these tales. They lost the eye 
not only for the true light of history but also for the light of 
truth itself." 178 While many sections of the Apocryphal Acts 
and Gospels contain songs, prayers, and homilies which bear 
witness to the remarkable gifts, mystic fervor and moral earnest- 
ness of those early Christians, and also to their deep sense of 
the spiritual presence and power of Christ, their living Lord, 
yet the narrative portions for the most part read like extracts 
from the Arabian Nights. 

Very occasionally they are characterized both by their vivid- 
ness of expression and spiritual suggestiveness. Take, e.g. the 
story of the Willow Tree: — "Again he showed me a willow which 
covered the fields and the mountains, under whose shadow came 
all such as were called by the name of the Lord. And by that 
willow stood an angel of the Lord, very excellent and lofty; and 
did cut down boughs from that willow with a great hook; and 
reached out to the people that were under the shadow of that 
willow little rods, as it were about a foot long. And when all 
of them had taken them, he laid aside his hook, and the tree 
continued entire, as I had before seen it. At which I wondered, 
and mused within myself." 179 

Many of the stories were based on the belief that to come by 
faith in touch with Jesus, either directly or indirectly, was a sure 
means of blessing. "The next day the prince's wife took per- 
fumed water to wash the (infant) Lord Jesus, and afterwards 
poured the same water upon her son, whom she had brought with 
her, and her son was instantly cleansed from his leprosy. Then 
she sang thanks and praises unto God, and said, Blessed is the 
mother that bare thee, O Jesus ! Dost thou thus cure men of the 
same nature with thyself with the water with which thy body 
is washed?" 180 The well-known story of the healing of Ab- 
garus, king of Edessa, carries a similar meaning. The Protev- 
angelium of James and the Gospel of Thomas, with their bizarre, 
inept, and repellent stories of the Nativity and of the childhood 
of Jesus are strangely deficient in any moral elements. And the 
apostle John certainly seems to discount all the miracles of 

178 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, I, 188. 

179 Apocryphal New Testament, "3 Hernias," VIII, 1-3. 
^Ibid., "1 Infancy," VI, 34-36. 



The Healing of the Nations 157 

Christ's childhood recorded in the Apocryphal Gospels, and to 
agree with the Synoptists in representing the Messianic career 
as beginning after His baptism. "This beginning of his signs 
(AV 'miracles') did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his 
glory." 181 

The main interest of the apocryphal writings for us lies in 
the fact that they were considered sacred by the Christians of 
the first four centuries ; that, together with the New Testament, 
they represent the popular beliefs of that period; and in the 
evidence they furnish by comparison of the progress of Christian 
thought during the intervening centuries. These legends are 
largely of a kind with those of the Koran and of Hindu myth- 
ology. Many of the acts and prodigies ascribed to Krishna are 
of the same kind as those attributed to Jesus in His infancy. 

In 1900 a translation was published of a Syriac (Edessan) 
manuscript, probably of the middle of the eighth century, in 
which it is supposed we have a reproduction or imitation of the 
language and ideas of the lost Gospel of the Twelve (written, as 
Zahn thinks, about 170 A. D.), from which we extract the fol- 
lowing passages: "When the voice was silent, they fell upon 
their faces from their fear a great and long space; and with 
the tears from their eyes all the upper room was full of water; 
and Simeon Kepha and his eleven companions rose up, being 
bound and called by the Holy Spirit, and they went whither 
Jesus had directed them, and they were there fasting and pray- 
ing seven days (? and did eat nothing), and suddenly there were 
set before them ( ? tables) full of all good things, things excel- 
lent, whence they came our Lord only knows, things from which 
he himself was nourished; and on the morrow, like as on the 
first day, he flashed light over them, and made them fervent in 
spirit and in truth, and a voice came to them and said, 'Speak 
out, speak out!' And they began to glorify God and laud and 
praise and exalt our Lord." The reader will note the striking 
similarity of the above to the vision of the Grail in Arthur's 
Hall. Again, or rather just before this, we read, "And forth- 
with our Lord was taken up from his twelve (apostles), and 
their minds were fervent (and were inflamed) like a fire that 
burns; and there was given to each one of them a tongue and 
grace, and Simeon spake with them in Hebrew, and James in 
Latin, and John in Greek, and Andrew in Palestinian, and Philip 
in Egyptian, and Bar Tholmai in Elamite (?), and Matthew in 
Parthian, and Thomas in Indian, and James the son of Alpheus 

181 John 2 11. 



158 The Healing of the Nations 

in the tongue of Mesopotamia, . . . and Thaddaeus in African, 
and Simeon the Cananaean in Median, and Matthias in the Per- 
sian tongue. And they understood what they were saying, each 
man (understanding) the tongue of his fellow. . . . And Simeon 
Kepha and the eleven disciples bowed down before God in the 
same upper room and they prayed. . . . And when they had 
finished their prayer, forthwith suddenly (the Lord) flashed 
lightning over them from heaven; and (the earth) was filled with 
a great light. . . . And a mighty voice was heard from within 
the light which said, 'Blessed and blessing is he that came and 
that comes in the name of the Lord; blessed is the mystery of 
salvation. . . .' Thus they heard until that light faded from 
the upper room." 182 Here again we discover several elements 
which the legends, both canonical, extra-canonical, and non- 
canonical, have in common. Regarding the passage last quoted 
the tradition is that the Twelve divided severally among them- 
selves the different regions above mentioned as the spheres of 
their activity. 

The Pleroma 

The one underlying idea in all these legends is that of 
the fulness of the divine life that dwelt in Christ and was 
communicated through Him, and the thoroughness with 
which the Church is the receptacle of His powers and the 
messenger of His grace. And to this truth bear all the 
apostles witness. "A woman, who had an issue of blood 
twelve years, came behind him, and touched the border of 
his garment . . . Jesus said, Some one did touch me; for 
I perceived that power had gone forth from me." And to 
the trembling woman He said, "Be of good cheer; thy faith 
hath made thee whole." 183 As radium emits rays of light 
and heat, so there radiated from Him hope and health 
wherever faith was found. His very garment, to its blue 
tassel, seemed to be instinct with His own spirit and sensi- 
tive to the most trembling hand. Hers was a superstitious 
touch; but the faith beneath it secured for her the blessing. 
The leakage of life in her case had probably been due to 
some weakness of will, which was removed by the new thrill 
of life that came from Him. 184 But in whatever light we 

182 J. Rendell Harris, The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, pp. 35, 30. 

183 Matth. 9 21, 22. 
™ John 10 10. 



The Healing of the Nations 159 

may regard the New Testament miracles, whether as actual 
history, "signs" 185 of Christ's divine authority, — emana- 
tions of the Eternal Light, or as object-lessons or symbols 
of spiritual processes, all history bears witness to the power 
resident in Christ to heal guilt and sorrow, doubt, and 
death itself. 

"The healing of His seamless dress 
Is by our beds of pain; 
We touch Him in life's throng and press, 
And we are whole again." 

Jesus spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, and 
smeared therewith the eyes of a man born blind. He then 
bade the man wash the clay from his eyes in a pool. He 
went, "and washed, and came seeing." 186 The tassel of His 
garment, clay and saliva, — these were the simple means He 
used to quicken faith and to carry the blessing. Even as 
it is written, "The leaves of the tree were for the healing 
of the nations." 187 Poverty of leaf is excused if a tree 
bears good fruit. The fruit, not the leaves, is the great 
endeavor of the tree and its excuse for existing. But in 
fruit and leaf the tree of life provides both food and medi- 
cine. Likewise "virtue" 188 and blessing extended to the 
very extremities of the Lord's ministry. Churches, schools, 
and hospitals spring up in the wake of the gospel. It pro- 
motes both holiness and sanitation, "having promise of the 
life which now is, and of that which is to come." 189 Oft- 
times the simplest, poorest things, — a doggerel verse or a 
poor sermon that has the name of Jesus in it, has proved 
the means of conversion or a source of comfort. 

Judas betrays Jesus, but stricken with remorse he rushes 

back to the Sanhedrin Hall and hurls the accursed shekels — 

the price of innocent blood — into the Holy Place adjoining. 

The priests could not put blood-money into the sacred 

Treasury for use in the service of the Temple. So they 

consulted together and decided to buy with the thirty shekels 

185 John 2 11; 20 30; 1 4. 

™ John 9 7. 

187 Rev. 22 2. 

™ Luke 8 46 (A.V.). 

*® 1 Tim. 4 8. 



160 The Healing of the Nations 

a potter's field, just outside the city, to bury strangers in. 190 
The old field had been well-worked in past time, there was 
little clay left in it, and they could buy it cheap. And 
now, for the strangers dying in the city, the Gentiles who 
formerly were buried like dogs outside the walls, a cemetery 
is provided where the despised, uncircumcised pilgrims might 
find rest. And "tainted" Judas-money, thus accidentally 
associated with Jesus, became the medium and symbol of 
God's grace to the heathen. And so also was the rejection 
of Jesus by His own nation converted into world-wide bless- 
ing. "I say then, Did they stumble that they might fall? 
God forbid: but by their fall salvation is come unto the 
Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. Now if their fall 
is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the 
Gentiles ; how much more their fulness?" 191 Even the cross, 
that instrument of terror and deepest shame has become the 
symbol of what most is prized among men. 192 

Apostolic Miracles 

Similar "signs" are said to have followed the preaching 
of the apostles everywhere. "By the hands of the apostles 
were many signs and wonders wrought among the people: 
insomuch that they even carried out the sick into the streets, 
and laid them on beds and couches, that, as Peter came by, 
at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them." 
And from the cities round about they came, bringing sick 
folk. "And they were healed every one." 193 "And God 
wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: insomuch 
that unto the sick were carried away from his body hand- 
kerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, 
and the evil spirits went out." They thought there was a 
magic virtue in Peter's shadow and in Paul's aprons. It 
was a superstitious idea; yet there was faith in it, and the 
faith was richly rewarded. Incidentally we are reminded 
of the conspicuous part played by the holy shadow of un- 
conscious influence and the consecrated apron of humble 

190 Matth. 27 3-10. 

191 Rom. 11 11, 12. 

192 Gal. 6 14. 
U3 Acts 5 13-16. 



The Healing of the Nations 161 

service in the history of Christ's kingdom, and that quite 
apart from any miraculous element, as set forth in the lives 
of Santa Zita, 194 George Fox, 195 William Carey, John 
Pounds, Elihu Burritt, Williams of Erromanga, Mackay of 
Uganda, and many others. 

Ecclesiastical Miracles 

We find no support given in the New Testament writings 
to the Roman Catholic belief in the healing and life-giving 
efficacy of holy relics. Cardinal Newman states that the 
Ecclesiastical relics are innumerable and inexhaustible, and 
that they possess supernatural virtues which always lie 
latent in them and often work powerfully. But first of all 
the genuineness of these relics remains to be proved. New- 
man says "that some of the miracles reported were true 
miracles ; that we cannot be certain how many were not 
true; and that under the circumstances the decision in 
particular cases is left to each individual, according to his 
opportunities of judging." Some of them he character- 
izes as "more or less unaccountable, unmeaning, extrava- 
gant, and useless," while many others are demonstrably 
false. 196 He admits, indeed, that the great mass of Eccles- 
iastical miracles is fictitious. He has no difficulty in accept- 
ing the miracle of the discovery of the Cross by St. Helena 
(A.D. 326), the miraculous cures by which it was distin- 
guished from the crosses of the two thieves, and the multipli- 
cation of the wood, in the form of relics scattered through 
Christendom. Paulinus said that it was distinguished from 
the other two by its restoration to life of a corpse which it 
touched. 

Newman mentions, without endorsing, the tradition that 
the portion of the Cross kept at Jerusalem gave off frag- 
ments of itself without diminishing. He remarks that "the 
very fact that a beam of wood should be found undecayed 
after so long a continuance in the earth would in some cases 
be a miracle," and then adds, "I am as little disposed to 

194 Note L. "Santa Zita," p. 241. 

195 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, "Symbols." 

196 Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, pp. 48, 100, 
300. 



162 The Healing of the Nations 

deny that the Cross was discovered, as that the relics of 
St. Cuthbert or the coffin of Bishop Coverdale have been 
found here in England, in our own day." 197 There are 
only two instances in Scripture of alleged miracles effected 
through the relics of saints, nor is it in any way intimated 
that such relics were possessed of a perennial virtue. 198 
Neither does Tennyson suggest such a claim for the Holy 
Cup or the Sacred Bread. 

"I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 

The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine: 

I saw the fiery face as of a child 

That smote itself into the bread, and went." 

In 1843, Cardinal Newman writes that he "cannot with- 
stand the evidence which is brought for the liquefaction of 
the blood of St. Januarius at Naples, and for the motion of 
the eyes of the pictures of the Madonna in the Roman 
States"; and does "not see why the Holy Coat at Treves 
may not have been what it professes to be." He accepts 
the story of the large plate of silver that appeared suddenly 
to St. Antony in the Thebaid desert. "As he spoke, the 
plate vanished." 199 But in 1870 he admits his mistake and 
speaks of the "professed," "the pretended liquefaction of 
the blood of St. Januarius" as "unsatisfactory." There is 
a class of "apparent miracles on which no stress can be 
laid, ordinary causes being assignable in all of these." 200 
Altogether, then, the evidence furnished by the Ecclesias- 
tical miracles seems a somewhat precarious and insecure 
foundation on which to base the authority of the Church. 
Not long since, it was announced from Rome that Pro- 
fessor Giaccio had by chemistry imitated the miracle of the 
liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. The professor 
employed a reliquary phial of the dimensions of those used 
at Naples. With the same number of candles as those 
which had been used three times a year at the Naples Ca- 
thedral, and the same degree of temperature, a reddish 

™Ibid., pp. 301, 326. 

188 2 Kings 13 20, 21; Acts 19 11, 12. Cf. 2 Kings 2 14; 4 29-37. 

199 Two Lectures, p. 123. 

** Two Lectures, pp. 62. 63. 



The Healing of the Nations 163 

coagulated substance within the phial, which remains the 
inventor's secret, began to liquefy and bubble exactly thirty- 
five minutes after the experiment began. 201 And as to the 
motion of the eyes in the pictures of the Madonna, a well- 
known modern picture of Christ shows how easy it is to 
give the eyes a similar expression. 

Now, a miracle which can be explained or imitated is no 
longer a miracle. With advancing knowledge, the modern 
man is less than ever inclined to implicit acceptance of 
miracles and prodigies. Rev. S. A. Barnett gives a per- 
tinent illustration of the extent to which scientific teaching 
is penetrating the Orient. He says, "A Cingalese, who had 
the devil-dancer to dance all night and attract the devil 
of disease from his body, told us next day that probably the 
damp was the cause of his rheumatism." Many of the 
alleged miracles admit of a psychological explanation, as 
being due to the state of mind of the patient rather than 
to any supernatural power or virtue in the sacred relic. 
To this class belong St. Frances' vision of her guardian 
angel, the exorcism of evil spirits, the cures wrought by 
the Holy Coat of Treves, by the Virgin Mary's garments 
at the Escurial, and the scenes witnessed at the sacred 
springs of Holywell and Lourdes. But the vast majority 
of Ecclesiastical miracles are an offense to reason and the 
moral sense. In all candor it must be said that the eminent 
Cardinal makes a strenuous but unsuccessful attempt to 
present the appearance of surrendering reason rationally. 
It is hardly necessary to point out the serious consequence 
of staking the truth of Christianity upon "such miracles 
as at the present day," to use his own words, "rather re- 
quire than contribute evidence, as if they formed a part of 
the present proof on which Revealed Religion rests its pre- 
tensions." 202 

Science and Miracles 

A similar danger, it may be said here, attaches to much 
of our Protestant teaching which represents God's power 
and glory as being more fully manifested through "the in- 

201 The Cincinnati Times-Star, December 24, 1906. 
303 Two Essays, pp. 10, 141. 



164 The Healing of the Nations 

terstices of a broken natural world" than through the 
established order of the world. Increase of knowledge has 
made belief in the miraculous to many more difficult and to 
many others impossible. Coleridge said he had seen too many 
miracles to believe in them. While the rank and file of 
believers accept the Biblical miracles at their face value as 
historically-attested facts, we find in largely increasing 
numbers and influence those who, in the light of the modern 
scientific doctrine of an unbroken order of causation in 
nature, treat miracles, in the strict sense, as historically 
inadmissible. It is increasingly felt that the state of our 
knowledge of nature and physical change is such that we 
must look elsewhere than in a literal interpretation for the 
true significance of the miraculous narratives. According 
to Ritschl, a miracle "has its truth, not for science, but for 
religious experience," and the transgression of natural law, 
which is foreign to our experience, is no necessary presup- 
position of it. Christ's power over nature, "quite inde- 
pendently of the criticism of particular miracles, is a neces- 
sary attribute of one in whom is accomplished . . . the per- 
fect grounding and representation of the divine image." 
But still His extraordinary works, he maintains, were not 
such as went beyond the bounds of natural law. 203 In this 
view miracle, w r hile not a "scientific" notion, has its religious 
or spiritual value. Miracles, it is now very generally held, 
may be attributed to the supposed operation of an existing 
physical cause, although the cause may not appear in the 
particular case or have been as yet discovered. Tentatively, 
then, each individual miracle stands or falls by the evidence 
that can be brought to support it, or by its own rationale, 
or by its scientific probability. There is general agree- 
ment that, if the Gospel miracles are to be believed in any 
form, it must be as the result of a prior faith in the unique 
spiritual personality of Christ. 

A middle position is taken up by those who, while accept- 
ing the Kantian doctrine that "nothing that can be proved 
to happen in this world lies outside the domain of the law 
of cause and effect," yet leave room for events which are 
to us mysterious, and in a sense miracles. To seek to evade 

208 See James Orr, The Bitschlian Theology, pp. 93, 202. 



The Healing of the Nations 165 

the difficulties by calling the supernatural the "higher na- 
tural" 204 is only playing with words. In none of the New 
Testament epistles is there any mention made of the mir- 
acles wrought by Jesus. John emphasizes the incarnation, 
Peter the transfiguration, 205 and Paul the resurrection, of 
Christ. In the Fourth Gospel miracles are introduced as 
aids to faith, 206 but nowhere is belief in miracle as a viola- 
tion or supersession of nature imposed as a condition of 
entrance into the kingdom of God. In other words, faith 
is not committed to the acceptance of particular miraculous 
incidents, neither is it affected by the critical doubts which 
may be cast on any or all of these. We must cling 
to knowledge, at all cost, and may, in consequence, find it 
necessary to modify or drop some cherished beliefs in the 
interests of faith itself. 



"Value- Judgment 

The day may come when with fuller knowledge of the 
processes of nature — the laws of mind and matter — men 
will experience no difficulty in believing in miracles, for the 
miraculous is always relative to knowledge. The very free- 
dom of the human will resists the idea of undeviating meth- 
ods of action on the part of men. How much more, then, 
on the part of God, so long as it can be seen to be for higher 
ends through the fuller self -disclosure of God. It is, there- 
fore, chiefly a "judgment of value" that must be pronounced 
on the records, as related to an objective ideal of beauty, 
goodness, and truth. It is very possible that as our knowl- 
edge of the natural expands, so also may our sense of the 
supernatural. And while it is necessary to strive for a 
philosophy which will give to Christian faith its appropriate 
intellectual context, free from credulity or suspicion, our 
supreme need is for an increased spiritual experience of 
God's saving grace in Christ, which neither historical learn- 
ing nor metaphysical insight can furnish. It is faith in 
Christ for His own sake, and not for the sake of His sup- 

204 Cf . W. W. Peyton, Memorabilia of Jesus, pp. 140, 315. 

205 2 Pet. 1 16-18. 

206 John $Q 30. 



166 The Healing of the Nations 

posed thaumaturgic powers, that is the inspiration and 
hope of humanity. It should perhaps be added that when 
we speak of "judgments of value" it is understood that 
they are judgments of truth, of reality, as well. "We know 
that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an under- 
standing, that we know him that is true, and we are in him 
that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the 
true God, and eternal life." 207 

207 1 John 5 20. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE QUEST OF THE IDEAL 

The Quest of the Holy Grail 

When the twelvemonth and a day had passed, the knights 
returned — but only a tithe of them — wasted and worn, to 
Arthur's Hall, where the king questioned them concerning 
their adventures. In the answers given, as in the course 
of the quest, the true character of each knight is made 
manifest. And first comes 

"The Poor in Spirit" 

(1) Sir Percivale, the central figure of the best-known 
versions of the story — the Conte del Graal, the Welsh 
Peredur, and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival — through 
whom the Grail first comes to be connected with Arthur's 
court, and who, "though ultimately deposed as the Grail 
hero by Galahad, remains to the end the real protagonist of 
the story." 208 When Percivale left the Hall and started 
upon his quest, he was lifted up in heart as he thought of 
his strength and prowess in the lists, and he "knew" that he 
should light upon the Holy Grail. But the Lord's "eyes 
are upon the haughty, that he may humble them." 209 
In the Christian life humility is as necessary as purity. 
All the Beatitudes are vitally and organically related, the 
blessing of "the poor in spirit" with that of "the pure in 
heart," and all the rest. Percivale is accordingly soon 
brought down from his high horse, and presently rebuked for 
his exaggerated self-confidence by a holy hermit, who said: 

"O son, thou hast not true humility, 
The highest virtue, mother of them all." 

208 W. Lewis Jones, King Arthur in History and Legend, p. 108. 
309 2 Sam. 22 2$. 

167 



168 The Healing of the Nations 

The Sins of Youth 

Despair followed upon presumption. All the evil things 
in his past life — words, thoughts, and deeds — awoke and 
cried, "This Quest is not for thee." And he also said it to 
himself, "This Quest is not for thee." The best of saints are 
sometimes troubled by the memory of the past, even of for- 
given sins. The psalmist prayed, "Remember not the sins 
of my youth, nor my transgressions." Poet and psalmist 
expose the fallacy of the ancient maxim that "young men 
must sow their wild oats." No such sowing ever brought 
any good harvesting. There is no advantage in a young 
soul losing the bloom of innocence, no gain in the "experi- 
ence" which comes from handling forbidden things. Such 
teaching has been the ruin of many a fine nature and promis- 
ing intellect. The parable of the Prodigal Son, the tender- 
est and deepest of all the parables, has suffered greatly from 
misinterpretation and misuse, as if it set a premium on 
"wild oats." Jude urged his readers to shun the sensual 
and lascivious, and to "hate even the garments spotted by 
the flesh." Paul said, "Flee youthful lusts." 

Percivale did well, however, in not yielding to despair. 
Like Christian, he got out of the Slough of Despond, and 
"on that side that was farthest from his own house," and 
went on his way. A thousand failures should not cause us 
to lower our ideals. The best that is still beautiful and 
attractive in one's thought is possible in one's experience. 

"Then welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go !" 210 

"Thou makest me to inherit the iniquities of my youth." 211 
Job thought, not knowing what else to think, that possibly 
his afflictions came upon him because of his early follies. 
The sense of sin may survive its forgiveness, haunt the 
memory, and come out with terrible vividness in seasons 
of trial and suffering. The gospel furnishes the antidote 
to this in the promise, "Thou shalt forget the shame of thy 

210 Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra, 

211 Job 13 26. 



The Healing of the Nations 169 

youth," 212 by reason of the floods of joy that rise from the 
new life within. It is practical atheism to match the gravity 
of our iniquity against the infinitude of divine grace. The 
full realization of forgiveness, however, does not come im- 
mediately. 213 The footsteps of the avenger sounded in the 
refugee's ears long after he arrived at the city of safety. 214 
Many a liberated slave has been terrified by the sudden 
crack of a whip in his neighborhood, — a feeling reminiscent 
of the old days. The gospel of Christ, however, delivers 
us from the haunting memory and tormenting fear of sin 
and temptation. 215 "In him we have our redemption through 
his blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions." 216 
Nevertheless, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way." 
"Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garment." 
Percivale sees the Holy Grail only after he has been cleansed 
of the sins that stain his soul. 

The "Unreasonableness" of Christianity 

The story of Percivale's meeting with his first love, 
whom he had not seen for many years, and how he was 
tempted to marry her, reminds us of the apparently harsh, 
abrupt, and unreasonable sayings of Christ, and of the 
impossible demands He makes upon His followers. 

"O me, my brother ! but one night my vow 
Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled, 
But waiFd and wept, and hated mine own self, 
And ev'n the Holy Quest, and all but her. ,, 

Presently he recovers himself, 

And "after he was join'd with Galahad 
Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth." 

Had he allowed himself to be detained in his quest even 
by the pleasures of a natural and pure affection, he could 

213 Isa. 54 4. 

213 Dante, Hell, XIV, 136; Purgatory, I, 4, 5, 120-130. 
314 Num. 35 9-12. 

215 Dante, Purgatory, XXVIII, 120-130; XXX, 143; XXXIII, 94, 
121-129. 
-Ephes.iT. x } \MMA 



170 The Healing of the Nations 

not have seen the Grail. Things in themselves lawful must 
not be allowed to allure the soul from following after Christ. 
He is the hardest, most exacting and unaccommodating 
master of all. 217 One said unto Him, "I have married a 
wife, and therefore I cannot come." Another said, "Lord 
suffer me first to go and bury my father. But he said unto 
him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but go thou 
and publish abroad the kingdom of God." "If any man 
cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, 
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and 
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The startling 
strangeness of His demand betokens its importance. He 
makes strong my home ties, and then says, "Leave it." He 
blesses my friendships, and then bids me forget them. He 
is intolerantly severe, and yet we understood Him to be so 
tender to all human ties, so full of pity for the sorrowing, 
building up broken homes, binding up broken hearts. Yes, 
but we must learn the supremacy of things eternal, we must 
recognize God's paramount claim upon us, we must know 
that Christ is Master and Lord in the realm of the spirit. 
Said one of the Church Fathers, "If thine own father stands 
in thy way to Christ, trample upon him." In our relation 
to Christ there must be no misunderstanding, no hesitation, 
no compromise, no half-heartedness. Nothing must come 
between us and our Lord, — absolutely nothing. He is the 
hardest, most intolerable, of all lords and masters, and also 
the best. His claims are in our highest interests ; His 
commandments are revelations of the true laws of life. 



The Christian Guerdon 

Self-abandonment and concentration are the secrets of 
the successful life. 218 "Whosoever shall lose his life for my 
sake shall find it." Christ delivers men from narrow sym- 
pathies and selfishness, and makes them citizens of the great 
kingdom of God. He does not ask of them an inhuman 
isolation or monastic impoverishment of life. When we 
learn the first lesson of absolute surrender to the highest, 

217 Luke 9 59-62; lj 18-20, 25-27. 
w Phil. 3 7-14. 



The Healing of the Nations 171 

He re-authorizes and re-consecrates for us all the sweet 
bonds of human fellowship, and gives us back our own with 
interest. "There is no man that hath left house, or wife, 
or brethren, or parents, or children, for the kingdom of 
God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this 
time, and in the world to come eternal life." 219 It is only 
as we surrender all for His sake that we come into true 
possession of all. Human relationships will become dearer 
than ever in Christ, and we shall give our own and all 
others a deeper love than without Him we could ever give. 
The influence of Jesus is the potent fact in the world today. 
The master minds of the ages have acknowledged His sover- 
eignty. The progress of the human race is measured by the 
power of His principles in the life of the world. The hard- 
est and most exacting, He is also the most reasonable and 
rewarding Master of all. To obtain the full benefits of 
the salvation He offers, there must be absolute loyalty, un- 
reserved allegiance. There must be no picking and choosing 
among the commandments and beatitudes. They all "be- 
long" together. The entire significance of the Sermon on 
the Mount lies in that. "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as 
your heavenly Father is perfect." 220 Salvation is one 
thing; complete discipleship, with its relative perfection, is 
another. 221 Note the Christ-emphasis in the story of the 
Rich Young Man who "came to him and said, Teacher, 
what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 
And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, 
If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell all and give: . . . and 
come, follow me." 

Percivale's devotion and stedfastness in the quest were 
rewarded by a sight of the Holy Vessel as it hung over 
Galahad in the boat, "clothed in white samite or a luminous 
cloud," and then "redder than any rose, the veil having been 
withdrawn," and still later as it hung over the far spiritual 
city. Whereupon he returned to Camelot, and having re- 
ported his adventures to the king passed into the silent life 
of prayer, praise, fast, and alms, in an abbey far away, 

»»LukeiS29, 30. 

^Matth. 5 48. 

^Matth. 19 16, 21; Mark 10 21. 



172 The Healing of the Nations 

and there in the following year he died and was buried be- 
side his sister, having lived there a "full holy life." 



The Quiet Disciple 

(2) Sir Bors. The king turns to the good Sir Bors, 
confident that he has seen the cup. 

" 'Hail, Bors ! if ever loyal man and true 
Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail' ; and Bors 

'Ask me not, for I may not speak of it: 
I saw it'; and the tears were in his eyes." 

He is the quiet disciple, who sees clearly and feels deeply, 
though he speaks not loudly. 

"Sir Bors it was 
Who spake so low and sadly at our board; 
And mighty reverent at our grace was he." 

He is not a man of many words, but the tears are in his 
eyes, for he has seen the Grail. His shamefastness and so- 
briety betoken a depth of spiritual experience. 222 In the 
still night he had seen the sweet Grail glide athwart the 
Seven Stars and pass, while he scarce could have hoped that 
his eyes should see a thing so holy. How pure the soul 
must be to bear the light and the burning bliss of that eternal 
vision! "I may not speak of it." He is the antithesis of 
Mr. Talkative, the most repellent of all Bunyan's characters. 
Sir Bors shows the reserve of a spirit chastened and refined. 
His silence is more eloquent and precious than the shallow 
babbling of the loud and loquacious people who love to 
parade their emotions and who talk about God and divine 
mysteries with the jaunty air of familiars. Maeterlinck says, 
"Nothing compels you to speak of your God; but if you 
undertake to do it, your statements must be better than 
the silence they break." It is not the things that make the 
most noise and show that are the bravest and best. Let 
those who think that enthusiasm must be noisy read Living- 
stone's Last Journals and the Autobiography of John G. 
Paton. Spiritual pride and boastfulness have no place 

222 Hab. 2 20; 1 Tim. 2 9. 



The Healing of the Nations 173 

among the disciples of Christ, and especially is this warn- 
ing needed in the case of those who have just experienced the 
recoveries of grace. A converted prodigal is hardly in a 
position to criticize ministers and others who have been 
serving Christ for a generation; neither should men whose 
lives have been spent in the practice of piety and in the 
study of God's word be expected to sit, delighted listeners, 
at the feet of the converted burglar, the reformed pugilist, 
the reclaimed gambler, or the permanently located tramp. 

"Perfect" People 

There is a place in the Christian life for reserve and 
self-abasement. All sin may be overcome by grace, but the 
terms are ceaseless vigilance and a life-long humility. The 
rule is, the less sin, the more sense of it, and the less satis- 
faction with oneself. Paul said, "Forgetting the things 
which are behind" — the good as well as the bad, his attain- 
ments as well as his failures — "I press on toward the goal; 
not as though I had already attained, either were already 
perfect : but I press on." 223 He who is satisfied with his 
spiritual attainments may reach the requirements of a sect, 
but he knows nothing of the heavenly vision. One has a 
natural antipathy to perfect people. We don't like them, 
nor do we like to be where they are. We have met them 
more than once, and as we were unable to perceive their 
vaunted superiority, that made it awkward for us both. 
A person has a right to speak of the remedy that made him 
whole, and may with humble reverence and thankfulness de- 
clare what the grace of God has done for him. But the 
prof oundest piety is averse to self-advertisement ; expression 
to it is more a sacrifice than a pleasure. In its relation to 
God it instinctively shrinks from expressing itself gushingly. 
We should do well to avoid the sentimental intimacy with 
which pietism too frequently seeks to express the love of 
man to God and the honeyed phrases addressed to the Most 
High, — "fondling, amorous language" Wesley called it. 
Ritschl suggests that gratitude, reverence, and obedience, 
all summed up in faith, are more appropriate to the relation. 

323 Phil. 3 12-14. 



174 The Healing of the Nations 

The Master's testing of Peter, with its searching "Lovest 
thou me?" revealed the sincerity and depth of the penitence 
and love of the once over-confident disciple, and affords an 
object-lesson to those who presume upon the strength of 
their emotions. Love involves a feeling of the worth of the 
beloved object, but is best expressed by a stedfast direction 
of the will to the furtherance of the purposes of the loved 
one. "Esteemest thou Me more than these? ... I love 
Thee. . . . Feed My little lambs." "Esteemest thou Me? 
... I love Thee. . . . Tend My sheep." "Lovest thou 
Me? . . . Thou perceivest that I love Thee. . . . Feed my 
sheep." 224 

Sir Bors, who has once sinned but is now forgiven and 
sanctified, returns to aid in restoring the glory of Arthur's 
court, to do battle upon the miscreants or Turks, and to 
devote his days to God and goodness. Love is not yet made 
perfect in him. When he comes to the magic tower and is 
tempted of the fairest lady that ever he saw, who threatens 
to cast herself down, with her twelve gentlewomen, from the 
high battlement, and be dashed to pieces unless he yield her 
his love, "then had he of them great pity," but is unmoved, 
thinking it better "they all had lost their souls than he 
his. 225 His conduct was correct, but his creed stood in 
need of revision in view of his imperfect apprehension of 
Christ's most profound saying, 226 and of his lacking some- 
what in a proper solicitude for the salvation of others. 227 
He was capable, however, of a great, unselfish love. He was 
a cousin to Lancelot, and also was to him a dear and faith- 
ful friend. Now 

"Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him 
That ill to him is ill to them: to Bors 
Beyond the rest; he well had been content 
Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, 
The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed, 
Being so clouded with his grief and love, 
Small heart was his after the Holy Quest." 

224 John 21 15-17. 

225 Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. XVI, Ch. xii. 
228 Matth, 10 39. 

227 Cf. Exod. $% 31, 32; Rom. 9 3. 



The Healing of the Nations 175 

Self-sacrifice 

"Love seeketh not its own." Sir Launfal went bravely in 
search of the Holy Grail, but found it not. Returning home 
exhausted and disappointed he met a leper at his castle-gate 
(so runs the dream), 

"And Sir Launfal said, 'I behold in thee 
An image of Him who died on the tree 



and while lifting his wooden beaker, full of sparkling water, 
to the lips of the afflicted man, the bowl was transformed 
into the Holy Grail, and in the face of the leper he saw 
the face of Christ. 228 And in spite of all the selfishness in 
the world, where men live as pagans and enemies all too long, 
the pages of history teem with examples of good-natured- 
ness, kindness, and self-sacrifice in the interest of others, 
as of the young sailor who, when the last place in the life- 
boat was offered him, drew back, saying, "Save my mate 
here, for he has a wife and children," and himself went down 
with the sinking ship ; or the poor child in a New York 
garret, glad to die, so that her little brothers and sisters 
should not always go hungry. How many a true soldier has 
"desired life like water and yet drank death like wine" for 
the love he bore to his country, his own, and humanity. 
Such souls have nothing to ask on earth. They have in 
themselves a better possession than all the world can offer 
them, a greater treasure than earthly pleasure or fame or 
power or comfort can give. 229 

The Bane of Frivolity 

(3) Sir Gawain. When we first meet with Gawain he is 
a romping care-free lad, running about like a colt, and 
followed by his flying hair, good-natured and ingenuous, 
the very antithesis of his brother Modred who is caught 
eavesdropping beside secret doors and is always plotting 
and scheming. In the earlier forms of the legend Gawain, 
and not Galahad, was the original hero of the Grail quest. 

228 J. R. Lowell, Poetical Works, "The Vision of Sir Launfal." 
828 Cf. Dante, Hell, V, 30-45. 



176 The Healing of the Nations 

He is called "Arthur's noble nephew," and plays a con- 
spicuous part with his uncle in driving out the heathen 
hordes. We are told that at twelve years of age he had been 
sent by his uncle to be brought up as a page in the service 
of Pope Sulpicius. He figures in the Welsh Triads and in 
the Mabinogion under the name of Gwalchmai as an un- 
doubted hero. In later versions he suffers grievously at the 
hands of the romancers, and in The Passing of Arthur he 
is described as an altogether frivolous and degenerate fellow 
whose ghost is blown along a wandering wind, crying, "Hol- 
low, hollow, hollow all delight." 

"Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man." 

Sir Pelleas asked him once — 

" 'Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love ?' 
'Ay,' said Gawain, 'for women be so light/ ' 

Sir Percivale speaks of him as "a reckless and irreverent 
knight." And so, when the king asked him, 

" 'Gawain, was this Quest for thee?' 
'Nay, lord,' said Gawain, 'not for such as I ; 
For I was much awearied of the Quest: 
But found a silk pavilion in a field, 
And merry maidens in it/ " 

And thus the twelvemonth and a day had passed pleas- 
antly enough with him. At Arthur's Hall he had sworn, 
"and louder than the rest," that he would go upon the Quest, 
but his mind was more set on worldly pleasures than upon 
spiritual adventures, and of course he never saw the cup. 
Not only so, but now he vows — 

"I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, 
And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, 
To holy virgins in their ecstasies, 
Henceforward/' 

He declares himself frankly astonished at the credulity 
of his fellow-knights, and now appears in the role of "dread- 



The Healing of the Nations 177 

ful example" and as the very antithesis, not of the treacher- 
ous Modred, but of the pure and single-minded Galahad 
who, in the later versions, supplants him as the hero of the 
Quest. And to him Arthur said — 

"Deafer and blinder unto holy things 
Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, 
Being too blind to have desire to see." 

The "Natural" Man 

He believes no more in Mount Zion than in the field of 
Sindbad, and has much more regard for Ali Baba than for 
Bunyan's Pilgrim. "The natural ( psuchikos ) man re- 
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are 
foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because 
they are spiritually judged." 230 By the "natural" man 
Paul really meant the "psychical" man, and that is the 
term he employs. Every human being, he says, has a 
physical nature, a psychical or soul nature, and a spiritual 
nature. The body is the seat of our sense-consciousness. 
The soul is the seat of our self-consciousness. The spirit is 
the seat of our God-consciousness. In the body sense dwells ; 
in the soul, or intellectual nature, self dwells ; in the spirit 
God dwells. The body should be subject to the soul, and 
the soul to the spirit. The spirit, the innermost being, the 
immortal ego, is the true man, made in the image of God, — 
Infinite Mind differentiated into an individual life-center. 
The man in whom the appetites and physical cravings pre- 
dominate is a carnal being. The psychical man is he who 
thinks, knows, and feels concerning the things of this world, 
whose horizon is bounded by the material and temporal. 
The spiritual man takes hold on God, keeps his nature open 
to the access of the Spirit of God, and seeks to make mind 
and body subservient thereto. The man whose whole time 
and thought and strength are taken up in caring for the 
satisfactions of the body, or in acquiring knowledge only 
about his earthly home, or is devoted to those interests which 
relate only to this world, can neither receive nor know spirit- 
ual things. His heart is clogged and closed against the 

230 1 Cor. 2 14. 



178 The Healing of the Nations 

Spirit of God; he looks no farther than this present life. 
"These be sensual (psuchikoi, 'natural, 5 'animal')," Jude 
says, "having not the Spirit." They may not be flagrant 
transgressors, for there are other influences that make for 
external morality besides the spirit of holiness. They may 
have some attractive qualities, as Gawain had. He was 
loyal and true to the king. 

" 'O King; my liege/ he said, 
Hath Gawain fail'd in any quest of thine? 
When have I stinted stroke in foughten field?' ' 

Spiritual Atrophy 

He urges the king not to be over hasty in bringing 
Guinevere to the fire, there to have her judgment, and re- 
ceive the death. And when the king would not be moved 
from his purpose, "Sir Gawain turned him, and wept heart- 
ily, and so he went into his chamber." He was charitable in 
judgment, and of a generous and forgiving disposition. He 
has his good points, but is atrophied on the spiritual side, 
and finds his counterpart in Esau, that "profane person, 
who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright." 231 Like 
Esau, he was a lover of the chase, a general favorite at 
country houses, tipping the servants lavishly, and basking 
in the ladies 5 smiles. But to Esau there came no vision of 
angel-staircases, to Gawain no vision of the Holy Grail. 
Carnal men eat and drink their visions away. The invisible 
does not lie within their plane. In relation to the unseen 
they are like men who have no ear for music, no eye for the 
oeautiful. The powers of the world to come are treated 
as the dream of visionaries and fanatics. To them nothing 
seems sacred. They see no light of God on anything upon 
earth. Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. 
Great truths can find no lodgment in a frivolous mind. Not 
that there is anything unique or esoteric about spiritual 
knowledge ; only the deep slumber of sense has to be broken, 
the hunger of the soul must be awakened, if the wants of 
man's rational and spiritual nature are to be satisfied. 
"The hungry he hath filled with good things ; and the rich 

*» Heb. 12 16. 



The Healing of the Nations 179 

he hath sent empty away." There must be like devotion 
and concentration as in any other pursuit, even as Sir 
Gareth followed his lofty and worthy purpose to its final 
triumph — 

"Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell. ,, 

Use your senses or your worldly knowledge only, and faith 
and hope will die out of your heart, and you will end your 
days a cynic and a pessimist. Life will reveal its full mean- 
ing and worth to us only as we remember that we are spirit- 
ual beings, keep in touch with the supersensuous order, in 
correspondence with spiritual reality, and hearken diligently 
and gladly to the still, small voice that speaks amid the 
earthquake, wind, and fire of material things. 

"We receive but what we give, 
And in our life alone does nature live: 
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud !" 232 

To the poet, nature is a divine ode; to the carnally- 
minded a happy hunting-ground; to the spiritually-minded 
a temple. As they stood gazing at Niagara Falls the engi- 
neer said, "What power is there!" the artist, "What won- 
drous beauty !" the aged widow, who had seen many and sore 
afflictions, "What a heap of troubled waters !" Life an- 
swers to our moods and truth to our faith. To the anxious 
and sincere enquirer Jesus explained the mysteries of the 
kingdom of heaven. 233 But when the frivolous and lustful 
Herod "questioned him in many words, he answered him 
nothing." 234 

"The Powers that Tend the Soul" 

(4) Sir Lancelot. The mightiest and best loved of all 
the knights brought ruin through his sin upon Arthur's 
house and kingdom. But long before the final debacle both 
Guinevere and he had been ill at ease in their clandestine 
relation. They both had felt the prickings of conscience; 

232 Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode, iv, v. 
»Matth. 13 11-15. Cf. John 3 1-01; 4 5-26. 
234 Luke 23 8, 9. 



180 The Healing of the Nations 

there had been vague fears and searchings of heart, warn- 
ing voices and red lights — 

"The powers that tend the soul, 
To help it from the death that cannot die, 
And save it even in extremes, began 
To vex and plague her." 235 

She had forebodings of gathering ills and of a tragic end 
to their liaison, and so she urged that Lancelot should not 
come again. 

" 'O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land. . . / 
And Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd, 
And still they met and met." 

That was yet far from dead wherein they were held. They 
see the better yet fondly cling to the worst. He deplores 
his weakness, despises himself for his disloyalty to king and 
conscience, and engages in a remorseful struggle with his 
sin, but lacks the entire will to eradicate it. 236 In this he 
presents a striking contrast to the good Sir Gareth in his 
strenuous and successful combat with the powers of sense, 
and whose story furnishes the key to the meaning of the 
Idylls as a whole. Lancelot went in quest of the Grail in 
the hope that if he could touch or see it he might be cleansed 
of his sinful passion, "the poisonous plant" which he knew 
was growing up within his nature, for he had been the un- 
willing slave to the law of sin in his members warring against 
his better self, the law of his mind. It is the old story of 
the struggles of a disintegrated individuality, — first the 
temptation, then the fall, the struggle, the failing again and 
again, the despair, the terrible awakening, and the purifying 
discipline. In the course of his adventures Lancelot comes 
to the enchanted castle of Carbonek, and there he gets, as 
he tells the king, the merest glance of the Holy Grail — 

"All pall'd in crimson samite; but what I saw was veil'd 
And cover'd; and this Quest was not for me." 

While not fully delivered from the love and power of sin, 
he yet aspires to higher things, and is rewarded by a passing 



« 6 Cf. Rom. 7. 



The Healing of the Nations 181 

glimpse of the Holy Vessel veiled and covered, — so ready 
and immediate is the Divine response to the longing and 
striving of the penitent soul. Upon his return from the 
quest he retired to a monastery, where the bishop put an 
habit upon him, and there he served God day and night 
with prayers and fastings, "doing bodily all manner of 
service. " Thus he endured in great penance six years, so 
that he waxed "full lean." He then was made a hermit- 
priest, and a twelvemonth he sang mass. There he died 
and was later buried at his castle of Joyous Gard with 
solemn service. 237 

Guilty love is a poisonous weed that strikes its deadly 
roots deep into the soul. 



The Contagion of Faith 

(5) Sir Galahad, The stainless boy-knight Galahad 
was told by Percivale's sister that he should see the Holy 
Cup and, following it, should break through all obstacles 
till one should crown him king far in the spiritual city. 

"And as she spake 
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
On him, and he believed in her belief." 

And when it appeared in Arthur's Hall, he saw the Holy 
Grail and heard a cry, "O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow 
me." 

When later he told Percivale how he had seen it, and in 
following had never lost sight of it, and that Percivale also 
should see it — 

"His eye," said Percivale, 
"Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 
One with him, to believe as he believed." 

To carry conviction to others it is necessary that we 
ourselves be first convinced. All great reformers were souls 
aflame with truth and passion. "If you have any faith," 
said Goethe, "give me the benefit of it : I have doubts enough 

337 Malory, Morte Darthur, Bk. XXI, Chs. x, xi. 



182 The Healing of the Nations 

of my own." Paul was anxious to visit the Christians in 
Rome, "that I," he says, "with you may be comforted in 
you, each of us by the others faith, both yours and 
mine." 238 If you believe in the power of the gospel, in the 
ultimate triumph of good over evil, let men read the good 
news in your eyes, hear it in your firm and confident step, 
and benefit by your faith, for there is little of it in the 
world today. Court journals, a neurotic literature, and a 
pessimistic theology are doing their utmost to damp the 
ardor and quench the hope of the world, by destroying all 
faith in goodness. Nothing is so easy as cynicism and 
nothing so cheap as the continual discounting of other 
people. Jesus saved men by believing in them, and was the 
greatest optimist of all. Preachers of His gospel should 
not speak like beaten men. The Christian message at first 
came "in power, in the Holy Spirit, and in much assur- 
ance." 239 The prime need of the world today is a new 
thought of God, new faith in a God who is holy and good 
and almighty, to whom belong the kingdom and the power 
and the glory. We cannot worship or trust a divinity that 
is only partially good or holy or powerful. We must have 
faith in God and set about reconstructing our world and 
our theology in terms of that faith. And then with clarion 
voice we should announce it to the world. "O thou that 
tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain ; 
O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up the 
voice with strength; life it up, be not afraid; say unto the 
cities of Judah, 'Behold your God !' " Only such a faith 
in such a God will give lib the power which our day calls 
for — 

"Power on this dark land to lighten it, 
And power on this dead world to make it live." 240 

This is the spiritual gift which it is our supreme privilege 
to impart to men. Percivale's sister was intensely eager 
to give the benefit of her faith and vision to others. And so 
was Galahad. And so is every faithful Christian. 

238 Rom. 1 11, 12. 

239 1 Thess. 1 5. 

240 The Coming of Arthur. 



The Healing of the Nations 183 

The Law of Increase 

There is nothing that is so truly one's own possession as 
his spiritual convictions — nothing that is quite so personal 
to oneself. No path is so private as the soul's path to God ; 
only one can walk in that. But men are not on that account 
to keep their convictions to themselves. His religion is not 
something for the individual alone, neither is it an exclusive 
secret between the soul and God. "The faith which thou 
hast, have thou to thyself before God," 241 but only in mat- 
ters of doubtful disputation. Our faith becomes all the 
more ours the more we seek to communicate it to others. 
The law of competition is reversed in the kingdom of God 
and becomes the law of mutual helpfulness. Spending, not 
saving, is the law of increase in the life of faith. "Self- 
absorption is equivalent to moral paralysis." Heaven itself 
is not the private patrimony of a select coterie. Its light 
increases with every accession to its citizenship. "There 
is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 

Mysticism 

Galahad saw the Holy Grail from the beginning, and it 
was there wherever he went, for his soul had never been 
stained nor his spiritual vision clouded by sin. And it never 
appeared veiled to him, he said — 

"But moving with me night and day, 
Fainter by day, but always in the night 
Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken'd marsh 
Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top 
Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 
Blood-red." 

And he rode on and fought and wrought and endured as 
seeing Him who is invisible, for the mystic stone, the chalice 
that brimmed red with the very blood of God Incarnate, was 
the symbol of the Divine presence and favor gained through 
spiritual contemplation, and this sense of the Real Presence 
was with Galahad constantly. Rare souls there are with 

241 Rom, U 1, 22. 



184 The Healing of the Nations 

whom the mystic mood is normal, and the beatific vision that 
comes to common men at rare intervals of spiritual exalta- 
tion is an abiding presence. This made Sir Galahad strong 
and invincible, as Percivale said both of Galahad and him- 
self— 

"A strength was in us from the vision." 

Moses and Aaron and the seventy elders went up Mount 
Sinai, "and they saw the God of Israel ; and there was under 
his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it 
were the very heaven for clearness." 242 Moses was fitted 
and privileged to enjoy a nearer access to and clearer 
vision of God than the Seventy. "The appearance of the 
glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the 
mount. . . . And Moses entered into the midst of the 
cloud," where he was bidden to do his work after the pattern 
that was showed him there. There was hard and strenuous 
work before him, and for many years after, when Sinai's 
top was grim and bare and the illumination on his face had 
long died away, the memory of that vision sustained him 
in many a dark hour, amid the murmurings and backslidings 
of a stubborn and rebellious generation. Of the sustaining, 
conquering power of this holy communion Sir Galahad said — 

"In the strength of this I rode, 
Shattering all evil customs everywhere. . . . 
And in the strength of this came victor." 

His joy is commensurate with his strength and, rapt 
in ecstasy, he steadily follows the gleam — 

"Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! 
My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
As down dark tides the glory slides, 
And star-like mingles with the stars." 

Then in a moment, see there the spiritual city and all her 
spires and gateways in a glory like one pearl! And in 
another moment, over the sparkling bridge and over what 
seemed a sea of glass mingled with fire, Sir Galahad enters 
the Holy City, there to be crowned a king. And full many 

24a Exod. 24 10, 17, 18. 



The Healing of the Nations 185 

a Galahad, who never rode in harness on quests of knight 
errantry, but who labored without fame in the byways of 
life, has also entered in. "Blessed are the pure in heart: 
for they shall see God." 



Monasticism 

In the later version of the Grail legend Galahad becomes 
the chief hero and ideal knight, thus superseding Gawain 
and Percivale who were successively the central figures in 
the earlier versions. It had become necessary to introduce 
Galahad, the maiden knight who "never felt the kiss of 
love," as the most highly privileged of all the knights in 
order to show that celibacy and asceticism were compatible 
with true knighthood, and as a corrective to the notion that 
love and, all too often, illicit intercourse, was the sole or 
chief motive by which the knights were actuated in their 
perilous adventures. Truth to say, however, that in his 
unworldly, anti-worldly or other-worldly spirit, his uncom- 
promising attitude toward common earthly interests, he 
proves a less human and more shadowy figure than any of 
the knights-errant. The ideal knight has become not 
merely chaste but also an ascetic celibate and a mystic, 
absorbed in spiritual contemplation. 

He is represented as the son of Lancelot and the fair, 
lovable Elaine, a relationship which is subtly introduced in 
the interests of monachism as suggestive of the idea that 
"the sin of Lancelot is largely expiated by the unsullied 
purity of his son." Being less human and more detached 
from worldly interests and normal experience, Galahad is 
really less attractive and inspiring than the other principal 
characters. In the case of Percivale, Bors, and Lancelot, 
repentance, confession, renunciation, penance, and absolu- 
tion mark a definite stage in a progress toward spiritual 
perfection, whereas Galahad is a righteous person who needs 
no repentance. The Galahad romance is thus rendered 
comparatively weak and lifeless, inasmuch as the attainment 
of the highest spiritual good is conditioned upon renounc- 
ing every human desire, as if, for the cultivation of the cardi- 
nal virtues and the avoidance of the deadly sins, a man must 



186 The Healing of the Nations 

be practically taken out of the world. 243 Thus the Chris- 
tian ideal is that of an unhuman life which blesses no one but 
the quester and which breaks up the order of human society, 
as Arthur mournfully said. Jesus said, "I pray not that 
thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou 
shouldest keep them from the evil." 244 Galahad's is largely 
a selfish quest, a shadowy perfection, out of touch with the 
life of the world. It is the sinful Lancelot, who loves his 
sin and hates himself for it, and who seeks to retrieve the 
past and to purify himself, rather than his sinless son, the 
visionary ascetic Galahad, who gives the story its human 
interest and moral value. 



The Celibate 

The Galahad ideal insists upon the need for physical 
chastity and utters its strong protest against the loose moral 
code and repulsive ways of knightly love. Nearly every- 
thing in that age was subordinated to the idea of individual 
prowess, and smelt considerably of the stable. The war- 
like virtues were all in all. And in days of lawlessness when 
bold bad men haunted the woods and made all traveling 
dangerous, such constabulary service as the knights rendered 
was felt to deserve its reward in whatever form might be most 
acceptable ; especially was this the case in the "love-service" 
of ladies, whether wedded wives or maids. The situation 
thus created became a menace to domestic and social life 
and debasing to the ideal of love. The tragic end of Lance- 
lot and Guinevere reflects the silent judgment which that 
age passed upon illicit love. "Whoso takes a love not law- 
fully his own, gathers a flower with a poison on its 
petals." 245 But in the natural and just revolt against these 
conditions, bodily chastity was exalted above almost every 
other earthly virtue, and sainthood conditioned upon celi- 
bacy. 

The marriage relation itself was regarded with somewhat 
veiled contempt as unspiritual in character. The special 

243 Note M.— P. 241, "Meaning of Knighthood." 

244 John 17 15. 

243 Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm. 



The Healing of the Nations 187 

dignity of womanhood and the divine mission of motherhood 
were held to be incompatible with the highest type of Chris- 
tian life. The aims and needs of this world, in such a scheme 
of life, are lost sight of. Human energies and aspirations, 
both of men and women, are left unsatisfied and unrecog- 
nized. Lord Tennyson has been at great pains to restore 
the Christian ideal of love and marriage, as opposed to 
virginity and asceticism, and this he has accomplished with 
conspicuous success. Conjugal love within Christian bonds 
becomes with him a holy sacrament, a superlatively ethical 
conception, and its treatment the crowning glory of his 
work. The family becomes the first unit in a civilized State, 
in a divinely ordered Society. Arthur, with his ideal of pure 
wedded love — "living together as one life" — and his devo- 
tion to the service of man, is his ideal of manhood. Not in 
power or riches or learning or personal salvation does man 
attain the highest good or happiness, but in the ordinary 
ways of life, in the common human affections. 

In Touch with the Infinite 

(6) King Arthur. Some of the knights averred that if 
the king had been present and had seen the Grail when 
it appeared at Camelot, he too would have sworn the vow and 
gone upon the quest. But the king said — 

"Not easily, seeing that the King must guard 
That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
To whom a space of land is given to plough, 
Who may not wander from the allotted field 
Before his work be done ; but, being done, 
Let visions of the night or of the day 
Come, as they will; and many a time they come." 

Spiritual contemplation is a vital necessity of the Chris- 
tian life. 246 Seasons of quiet meditation upon invisible real- 
ities feed the inner springs of life. Communion with God 
is the best preparation for the service of man. Rest and 
reverie, those states in which we are almost passive to other 
than earthly thoughts and influences, are often the most 
248 Col. 3 1-4. 



188 The Healing of the Nations 

fruitful. Those who are so immersed in worldly cares and 
duties as to have no time for eternity, no leisure for prayer, 
soon lose the highest incentive to service. Ideals lose their 
power, life becomes stale and service a drudgery. An emi- 
nent artist used to keep a number of highly-colored stones 
in his studio to help keep his eyes up to tone. We need the 
lure of ideals. Our hearts cry for communion with the high 
and holy. The busier we are, the more we need to pray. 247 
We need the poise and the power that come from meditation 
and prayer. It is not without significance that the Hebrew 
word for "meditate" (siyach) means also "to pray." 248 
The prayer closet is the power-room of life. Seasons of 
withdrawal from the world should not be unduly prolonged, 
neither should they be rushed. General Gordon's little white 
flag flew over his tent at the noon hour to indicate that he 
was at prayer and must not be disturbed. The sun will 
stand still for us while we pray, opportunities will tarry, 
neither will the moon hasten to go down. We need the 
celestial vision to relieve the strain of toil, to heal us of 
the fret and worry and carking care, and to deliver us from 
low, sensual, materialistic views of life. It will give a touch 
of eternity to the lowly task. In all great art — whether 
poetry or painting or sculpture or music — there is a sug- 
gestion of the infinite. All great and noble living also is 
suggestive of a divine inlet and an eternal outlet. 

Spiritual Aloofness 

What is within us is derived from something beyond us ; 
and with that Something Beyond we must keep in constant 
touch. The soldier at the front must not cut himself off 
from the base of supplies and communication, from which 
he receives his support and orders. But union with God 
does not imply or necessitate separation from man. For 
the extreme mystic, to live in the spirit meant renunciation 
of the w T orld, resulting in a state of ineffable exaltation. 
Galahad was thus caught up into a realm intermediary be- 
tween this earth and heaven. But spiritual ecstasy or 

247 1 Sam. 7 15-17. 

248 Gen. 24 63; Ps. 55 17; 10 4 34; 119 148. 



The Healing of the Nations 189 

rhapsody is not the highest form of religion. Spiritual con- 
templation is not an end in itself. The Mount of Trans- 
figuration must be left for service in a world of sin and 
suffering and sorrow. 249 Jesus gave priority to the prac- 
tical duties of life even over communion with His Father. 
King Arthur thought not highly of them, who — 

"Leaving human wrongs to right themselves. 
Cared but to pass into the silent life." 

They had thus missed the secret of the truest and highest 
life, for "except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and 
die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much 
fruit. He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth 
his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." 250 



The Symmetrical Life 

To engage in the service of humanity does not, it is true, 
exhaust or fulfil the service and worship that we owe to 
God. Religion has a Godward no less than a manward 
attitude. And in the rush and drive of modern life we are 
apt to miss the joy and benefit of personal fellowship with 
God, and thus to rob life of its divine glow and service of its 
heavenly dignity. We are not slaves or bondservants, but 
children in their Father's house. 251 And the Father's house 
is the children's home, where all are on terms of intimate 
fellowship. Mysticism, therefore, has its place in religion; 
indeed worship is the central and most distinctive act and 
attitude of the soul. Mysticism, however, should not be 
confused with eroticism or extravagant emotionalism or 
peculiar and abnormal psychical conditions, mere states of 
feeling devoid of social worth or constructive value for 
life and character. "There is in all Eastern religions, 
whether we look Godward or manward, a stern separation 
from the common feelings and interests of mankind." 252 

Christian asceticism and monachism have also denuded life 

^Matth. U 13, 14; Mark 6 30, 46. 

250 John 12 24, 25. 

351 John 15 15. 

382 Dean Stanley, Addresses and Sermons in America, I, 109. 



190 The Healing of the Nations 

of some of its highest values, nor have they proved con- 
ducive to the promotion of the truest type of spirituality. 
Their devotees, equally with other men, have had to wage 
war with carnal temptations. 

"Old monk and nun, ye scorn the world's desire, 
Yet in your frosty cells ye feel the fire !" 253 

St. Bernard, when so tormented, would rush into the icy 
stream and stand there neck-deep until the passion-flames 
had been subdued. St. Benedict used to roll his naked body 
in the thorns. And yet these were among the elect saints 
of God. The overweakening of the body through unnatural 
self-mortification only increases, instead of diminishing, 
sensual temptations. 

"If ye died with Christ from the elements of the world 
('stoicheiolatry'), why, as though living in the world, do ye sub- 
ject yourselves to such ordinances as 'Handle not/ 'nor taste/ 'nor 
touch' — about things all of which perish in the using — after the 
precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a 
show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to 
the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of 
fleshly desires/' 254 



Asceticism 

As a necessary protest against absorption in the pursuits 
of the world and in sensual pleasure the legend of the Grail 
has a high moral value ; but in its presentation of Christian 
asceticism and emotional extravaganza as ideal modes of 
life it is simply a monument of a medieval, unscriptural, and 
unacceptable theory of life. Such negations, abnegations, 
and detachment from human interests have militated against 
spiritual progress. There may have been exceptions here 
and there, but the true "rapture" — the pure mystic experi- 
ence — has been generally and more helpfully obtained in 
other ways, in ways that proved more vital and dynamic. 255 

258 Tennyson, Balin and Balan. 

264 Qol. 2 20-23. 

255 Note N.— P. 241, "Asceticism." 



The Healing of the Nations 191 

"For nineteen centuries men have been seeking the ideal 
Christian. Consciously or unconsciously the quest has gone on. 
He has taken many queer, abnormal shapes; sometimes he has 
been a religious being without morality; sometimes a soul with 
a body thought of only as the instrument of all evil, all pleasures 
of sense being anathema. Again, conscience unregulated by 
reason, drove men from the real duties of life to some fanatical 
isolation. Under the pressure of ecclesiastical tyranny men 
yielded their right to think and became slaves. In our own day 
we believe that men are coming into the light of Christ's ideal. 
He made men whole. What can this mean but that Christ makes 
men what He, as their Saviour, wanted them to be — complex 
beings — soul and body — with every faculty developed into a 
perfect and harmonious whole? Here is room for every gift 
of the soul, for every power of the body, as together they fit 
man for every relationship of life. Nothing that concerns his 
welfare can be foreign to religion. A church which fails to save 
the whole man has missed the way." 256 

Practical Religion 

There is less inclination nowadays to treat religion as 
an emotional or mental aberration or idiosyncracy. Religion 
is the response of the whole personality of man — thought, 
feeling, and will — to his entire environment, sensible and 
supersensible. Intense personal fellowship with Christ does 
not mean or necessitate indifference to the practical services 
of love in the interest of the world for which He died. The 
still, small voice bids us leave the cave and cloister for the 
busy, dusty highway, and the raging mart, and wherever 
the strife is fiercest. The monasteries of the early period 
rendered invaluable service to the world. In the promotion 
of agriculture and sheepf arming, as skilled artisans in wood, 
metal, glass, leather, gems and jewels, as transcribers of old 
manuscripts, and especially as custodians of the Sacred 
Writings and preservers of the masterpieces of classic litera- 
ture, the scholars of the cloister have placed the world under 
a very heavy debt of gratitude, in strange contrast to the 
fruitlessness and turpitude of asceticism and the nauseous 
disquisitions and ingenious nastiness of Jesuitism. 257 The 

258 The American Missionary, May, 1922, p. 123. 

357 See Liguori, Extracts from "The Moral Theology" (1852). 



192 The Healing of the Nations 

application of the ethic of Jesus to social conditions is as 
integral to the Christian life as the office of worship and 
the purifying of character. It holds its place side by side 
with the ecstasy of prayer, with mystic moods of communion, 
with personal repentance and personal surrender. The men 
and women who have had the clearest vision of God and the 
nearest access to Him have not spent their days in mystical 
ecstasy over the fact that God loved them, although they 
have not been strangers to such an experience. Neither have 
they shut themselves up in cold rooms with instruments of 
self-torture. But they have gone forth to do His will in 
the world, shedding their life-blood for God and their fellows, 
for the bringing in of His kingdom. Wesley was right 
when he said that "the Bible knows nothing of a private 
religion," that is, in the sense which makes contemplation or 
intuition the goal and essence of the perfect life. The reality 
of our Christian experience of grace depends not upon the 
vividness of our sense of the Saviour's nearness, but rather 
on the nature of it, and especially upon its ethical quality, 
its effect on the conscience, on character, on service. The 
New Testament ideal of society is not a visionary city sus- 
pended in the sky — something to be longed for but never 
realized. It is rather that of a holy city coming down out 
of heaven from God, absorbing and transforming the king- 
doms of this world into its own image. 

The New Mysticism 

The renewed interest in historic mysticism is not due 
to any desire to revive the visionary mysticism of a past age, 
much of which was based on a one-sided and sickly view of 
life, but rather to a deepening sense of the need for a stronger 
emphasis on certain fundamental principles in their mutual 
interaction, such as a direct, individual experience of God's 
grace in Christ, the culture of the soul by contemplation, 
and the dedication of the self in loving service. Herein is 
the hope and healing for our modern life. The new mysticism 
indicates a heart at rest in God, free from the tyranny of 
"things" and of self-interest, and yet in loving touch with all 
that is going on about us. In the Middle Ages we find two 



The Healing of the Nations 193 

ideals at war with one another. In their extreme forms they 
take the shape of the chivalric and the monastic ideals. 
This antithesis gives their chief characteristic to that pe- 
riod. It appears in the separation between Church and 
State which, even when they are nominally or legally united, 
have distinct and separate interests. To the pious Jew the 
Church was but another name for the State. To the Greek 
and Roman, religion had always been a part of the State. 
Christianity, finding the State such as it was, held aloof 
from it, and the separation is still very distinct and pro- 
nounced. We still speak of the distinction between things 
secular and things sacred, as though they were as irrecon- 
cilable as the humanist ideal of the Renaissance and the 
ecclesiastical ideal of the Middle Ages were supposed to be. 
The new mysticism is very largely an attempt at bridging 
the gulf between them. To "sit with Christ in the heavenly 
places," and to be engaged for Christ in the ways and work 
of the world, are two aspects of the same life. To present 
our bodies a living sacrifice acceptable to God is spiritual 
service. Common things done for the Master flash into 
worship. 

"A picket frozen on duty, 

A mother starv'd for her brood, 
Socrates drinking the hemlock, 

And Jesus on the rood; 
And millions who, humble and nameless, 

The straight, hard pathway trod, — 
Some call it consecration, 

And others call it God." 258 



Duty First 

The other knights, of whom scarce a tithe returned to 
Camelot, spake but of minor adventures and "sundry perils 
in a storm." They never saw the Grail by day or night, and 
would have done better had they remained at home and 
helped to keep the realm in order. There are times when 
men are called to leave the more alluring quests at the 
urgent call of humbler tasks and the duties that lie nearest. 

158 W. H. Carruth. 



194 The Healing of the Nations 

They also have their reward. Adventure is fine, no doubt, 
but not all men are fit for it. There is one thing that all are 
fit for, and that is duty. Between duty and the man there 
is a correspondence, and to effect this correspondence, not 
to gratify our personal whims or predilections, is the office 
of religion. And after all, as the late Cardinal Gibbons said, 
"Success is duty performed." 

" 'Forego thy dreams of lettered ease, 
Put thou the scholar's promise by; 
The rights of man are more than these, 
He heard and answer'd, 'Here am 1/ 
He set his face against the blast, 
His feet against the flinty shard, 
Till the hard service grew at last 
Its own exceeding great reward/' 

King Arthur kept himself strictly at his allotted task and 
continued in it till the end, and therein lies the test of 
character and the price of perfection. "They that wait 
upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount 
up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; 
they shall walk, and not faint." Soaring, running, walking! 
Does that seem like an anti-climax? The rapture of ideal- 
ism, the impulsiveness of high purpose, and lastly the patient 
continuance in well-doing when life has become a treadmill 
round! There indeed we have the ascending scale and true 
climax of a life devoted to God. Noble Arthur! Thou, 
too, shalt have thy visions by and by, and no end of them, 
when the strange barge comes to bear thee safely over the 
dark waters to the quiet, beautiful shore of the island-valley 
of Avilion. 

The Passing of Arthur. The world was "white with 
May" when Arthur married Guinevere. It was the time of 
"yellowing woods" and withered leaf when the Last Tourna- 
ment was held. The white mist of the deep winter 

"Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still" 

when Arthur passed away. All of which is in keeping with, 
and symbolical of, the early promise and final decadence of 



The Healing of the Nations 195 

the Order of the Round Table. The poison and the canker 
and the worm had done their work. "Lust, when it hath 
conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown> 
bringeth forth death." 

The king had been wounded by his traitor-nephew Modred 
well-nigh to death. He said: 

"I perish by this people which I made, — 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more. ,, 

His faithful henchman Bedivere remained with him and 
hailed him king to the last. And Arthur said: 

"King am I, whatsoever be their cry." 
Said Bedivere, "My King, king everywhere !" 

In the light of the winter moon Sir Bedivere saw a dusky 
barge approach, wherein were three queens, black-stoled, 
black-hooded, with crowns of gold, who took the king into 
the barge, and wept. One of these was Morgan le Fay, 
sister of Arthur and pupil of Merlin, "a great clerk of 
nigromancy," Malory says. She possessed a marvelous oint- 
ment and was about to carry Arthur off to Avilion, even as 
the valkyr bore Siegfried to Valhalla. 259 Then said the 
king : 

"Farewell. I am going a long way 

With these thou seest — (if indeed I go, 

For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 

To the island-valley of Avilion. . . . 

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 

Sir Bedivere stands gazing after the barge as it vanishes 
beyond the horizon and wondering whether King Arthur will 
come again. 

"And the new sun rose bringing the new year." 

Mystery surrounds both the coming and the passing of 
the king. "From the great deep" he comes ; "to the great 
deep" he goes. The people said, "Arthur will come again: 
he cannot die." 

250 Note O.— P. 241, "Ointment." 



196 The Healing of the Nations 

A popular belief was long entertained among the Britons that 
Arthur was not dead, but that after he was healed of his wounds 
in fairyland he would reappear to avenge his countrymen and 
reinstate them in the sovereignty of Britain. This belief was 
held as late as the time of Henry II, some six hundred years 
after Arthur's death, and is supposed to account for the refusal 
of the Welsh people to acknowledge the sovereignty of that 
monarch. The Spaniards at one time were inspired with the 
belief that the Cid Rodrigo would return to restore the glories 
of Castile. Similar expectations have been cherished in Ireland 
concerning several of their local heroes, as, e.g., The O'Donohogue 
of Killarney. 

Some have regarded the Arthurian legend as a year- 
cycle-myth, which in its original conception it probably was, 
and in the passing of Arthur they see the summer god ban- 
ished by the winter powers, but destined to come back again. 
But in its later developments it has assumed, as we have 
seen, a much deeper and richer meaning. 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways." 

The time comes when "the pearl is sundered from the 
shell," when the spirit of truth takes on a new investiture. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EXCALIBUR: OR, THE ELUSIVENESS AND 
INSISTENCE OF TRUTH 

"On one side, 
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
'Take me/ but turn the blade and ye shall see, 
And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
'Cast me away.' " 

The powers are with Arthur from the first. At his 
coronation the three Christian graces of Faith, Hope, and 
Love stand 

"Gazing on him, tall, with bright 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need." 

There, too, was Merlin the Mage, Arthur's great coun- 
sellor, who represents wisdom, the eyes of the soul, as Bleys 
represents knowledge; and there was the Lady of the Lake, 
so called because she usually dwelt in a deep lake which was 
always calm whatsoever storms might shake the world. 
Within the lake was a rock, and therein was as fair a palace 
as any on earth, and "richly beseen." 

One day, when Arthur and the magician came to the 
lake, they beheld an arm that rose 

"From out the bosom of the lake, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful," 

and holding a splendid sword, whose hilt twinkled with 
diamond sparks, whereupon the king rowed across and took 
it. It was 

"Rich 
With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, 
Bewildering heart and eye." 
197 



198 The Healing of the Nations 

On one side of it was written, in the oldest tongue of all 
the world, "Take me" ; on the other, in the language of 
today, "Cast me away." The youthful king was not without 
his misgivings as he seized the sparkling weapon, and his 
face was somewhat sad ; but old Merlin counselled him, "Take 
thou and strike! the time to cast away is yet far-off." So 
Arthur took it, for twelve years wore it, and by it he beat 
the foemen down. That was the sword Excalibur, which the 
Lady of the Lake herself had so patiently and so wondrously 
wrought — 

"Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills/' 

and she who gave the king his magic blade whereby to drive 
the heathen out, was present at his coronation. 

Shortly after this the king marries Guinevere, the most 
beautiful woman of her time, who, as Merlin prophesied, 
proved unfaithful to him, bestowing her affections too much 
upon Lancelot, the most honored of Arthur's knights. 
Arthur leaves home, and is engaged in Gaul in fighting the 
Romans, who had demanded tribute of him, and during his 
absence Modred, whom he had left in charge of the kingdom, 
raises a revolt, allies himself with the Saxons, Picts, and 
Scots, and in addition to debauching the queen seeks to usurp 
the throne. So that Arthur has to return, and after much 
hard fighting they meet on the field of Camlan, where Modred 
inflicts upon Arthur a wound which cannot be healed on 
earth, and he in turn smites Modred dead. The brand 
Excalibur, which had served the King so well in many a 
mighty conflict, has struck its latest stroke. 

But before he passes away, the wounded king commands 
the bold Sir Bedivere to take his sword and fling it far into 
the neighboring mere, to watch what he saw, and bring 
him word. Once, twice, three times he had to go ; for first 
as he gazed on its almost living beauty, and then as he 
thought of its wondrous and inspiring history, his heart 
failed him at the idea of throwing away so rare a treasure. 
But being bidden a third time he went, flung it with all his 
might, and, behold an arm, "clothed in white samite, mystic, 
wonderful," rose from the lake, caught the weapon by the 



The Healing of the Nations 199 

hilt, brandished it three times, and drew it under. It was 
the Lady of the Lake. 

"And I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

Then said the king, "My end draws nigh; 'tis time that 
I were gone." He was carried to a dark barge on the lake 
shore wherein were three queens — such as were seen at his 
coronation — and many maidens, who loudly wept to find how 
changed the king was ; and over that silent lake he was 
borne in the barge to the island-valley of Avilion, to be 
healed of his wound. Then said Sir Bedivere — 

"The king is gone. 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes. 
He passes to be king among the dead, 
And after healing of his grievous wound 
He comes again." 

Faithfullest of the faithful, he gazed wistfully, longingly 
after the barge, and as he gazed "the new sun rose bringing 
the new year." So Arthur is sleeping in the Isle of Apples ; 
but when he is healed of his wounds and his country's need 
is sorest, he comes again. 

So runs the dream in the first of all favorite English 
romances; and now as to its interpretation. For this old- 
world story comes down laden with subtle suggestiveness 
and golden messages for us of today. 

"Each idyll pictures some phase of the struggle between what 
is spiritual and what is worldly, and all together they make a 
spiritual interpretation of life; but they should be read, not to 
figure out a mass of symbolism, but to enter sympathetically 
into the emotional situations. . . . They are, in fact, products 
not of the intellectual imagination so much as of the emotional 
imagination, poems not puzzles." 260 

In The Epic Lord Tennyson gives us very clearly to 
understand that the Idylls meant much more than the 
mere rehabilitation of an ancient tale. Not that the inner 

^Tisdel, Studies in Literature, p. 149. 



200 The Healing of the Nations 

meaning was always present to the poet's own mind. It is 
a genuine work of art, it is true poetry; it is therefore 
something more — it is sound philosophy. For all true 
thoughts are the shadowing forth of real things. We have 
the poet's own warrant for giving it an allegorical turn. 
"By*King Arthur," he said once, "I always meant the soul." 
In the king's desire to be joined with Guinevere, the "fair- 
est of all flesh on earth," some have read the soul's yearning 
for complete union and harmony with the body, the physical 
thus becoming a perfect instrument or vehicle for the self- 
expression and self-realization of the spiritual. That is 
quite in keeping with Lord Tennyson's ideal of the right of 
all men to the freest, fullest exercise of all their powers, as 
distinguished from asceticism, celibacy, and sensualism. 
Others find here an apotheosis of Christian marriage, of 
pure and constant wedded love, as the highest type of social 
life and the condition of social and political progress. 

"Were I join'd with her, 
Then might we live together as one life, 
And reigning with one will in everything, 
Have power on this dark land to lighten it, 
And power on this dead world to make it live." 

These are true interpretations as far as they go, and are 
in perfect agreement with the poet's conception of life and 
society as expressed throughout his work. In the dedi- 
cation To the Queen the poet gives the key to its larger 
meaning — 

"Accept this old imperfect tale, 
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul." 

Its avowed purpose is to typify the continual struggle 
in man's heart between the higher and lower instincts of his 
nature, and this chiefly in a historical and not merely bio- 
graphical or individual sense, for Arthur comes again. And 
by a natural extension of the idea, we may say that the 
Idylls are illustrative of the conflict between the progres- 
sively idealistic philosophy of life and the world, as dis- 
tinguished from the old static, rigid, cataclysmic philosophy. 
And this new conception has science (in particular biological 



The Healing of the Nations 201 

science) and poetry and the theology of faith, courage, and 
enlightenment on its side. The whole world-order is in move- 
ment, gradually unveiling a truth and a purpose which is 
universal and therefore omnipresent and all-present. The 
ideal is infinite and divine, but its realization is in time, and 
must take shape according to the conditions of time. There 
is always something temporary and incomplete about its 
manifestations. It continually incarnates itself anew in 
fuller and more adequate shape. 

Arthur, then, represents not simply what St. Paul calls 
the spiritual man as distinguished from the natural (psy- 
chical) man, but rather the spiritual principle or ideal which 
governs all ages, and enshrines itself in empires, systems of 
philosophy, schemes of education, social organizations, poe- 
try, theological creeds, and rubrics and rituals. The ideal, 
which has in it an absolute, eternal element, is for ever 
seeking to translate itself into visible and tangible shapes 
in the world of men; the tabernacles of earth are always 
built after some pattern seen in the mount. Through 
many incarnations, each more and more adequate, the 
Eternal Idea seeks its realization; but being eternal, its 
realization in time must necessarily be partial, temporary, 
and imperfect. Sir Bedivere found himself among "new men, 
strange faces, other minds." And Arthur answered from 
the barge — 

Just so: 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new. 
And God fulfils himself in many ways. 

In God's presence at this moment there are crowds of 
ideas and ideals waiting to be realized in the world of human- 
ity. 261 The prophets have announced them, the apostles 
have beheld their glory, the poets have told us that this is 
God's world, His purpose is in it, and He is working in it 
more than we think, saving the world, executing His will, 
and realizing himself in it as fast as He can. "God does 
nothing," said Carlyle to Froude, in a moment of impatience. 
But Carlyle, in such pictures as his French Revolution, has 
answered himself. We cannot reflect on the movement — the 
361 Cf. Isa. 49 16; Matth. 18 10. 



202 The Healing of the Nations 

ultimate tendency of the universe, of human life — without 
seeing that however marred and often thwarted, the Spirit 
of truth and goodness is the great, abiding reality. You 
cannot stop God's purposes. Our poet is an idealist, an 
optimist. He looks forward to the steady improvement of 
the human race and its advance toward higher conditions, 
and is quite free from any morbid sentimentalism. It may 
not be always clear ; the very nerve of faith may be sometimes 
touched — 

"Yet I doubt not thro* the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the 
suns. 

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. 
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet." 262 

We are so often disappointed; the ideal seems to elude 
our grasp, to fail us altogether, but it comes again. Arthur 
is the ideal in its vesture of time. Hence, though he be 
immortal, he passes away, but when he is healed of his 
wounds, he comes again. The ideal disappears only to 
reappear in another form. 

"Tho* men may wound him, yet he will not die, 
But pass, again to come." 

External forms, creeds, ritual, customs, institutions, in 
which truth temporarily shrines itself may, and indeed must 
necessarily, pass away, but the Eternal Spirit of truth which 
proceedeth from God abides with us for ever. "We know in 
part, and we prophesy in part ; but when that which is per- 
fect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." 263 
The bane of our day is the man who thinks he knows. It 
was not a happy opening to a conversation with Jesus when 
Nicodemus said somewhat patronizingly, "Rabbi, we know." 
He was soon given to understand how little he knew, and 
was compelled humbly to ask, "How can these things be? 
. . . Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not 
these things!" 264 When Jesus enunciated the essential 

^Locksley Hall. 
263 1 Cor. 13 9, 10. 
264 John 3 1-21. 



The Healing of the Nations 203 

condition to an understanding of divine mysteries, "Ye must 
be born anew (from above), 5 ' all became dark at first to 
Nicodemus. "There are convictions that are like the light 
that goes out when you break the globe." And globes are 
broken by the intensity of the light itself. A higher voltage 
calls for stronger mediums. And so there is change and 
progress as different ages and peoples come under the power 
of new ideas, and seek to give them visible or intelligible 
expression. The truth is, as Mr. A. J. Balfour says, that 
death is as necessary, and I would add, as desirable, "in 
the intellectual world as in the organic." "Not for that we 
would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that 
what is mortal may be swallowed up of life." 265 Decompo- 
sition in nature is recomposition ; dissolution, development; 
death, a return into the general life of nature, to be 
succeeded by a more prolific emergence. 

And so, too, the sword is taken up at the bidding of "the 
oldest tongue of all this world," — the most ancient longing 
of the human heart to establish the ideal on its throne, and 
"to drive the heathen out" ; but our working theories soon 
become obsolete, and in "the speech of today" — by the insist- 
ence of present-day requirements — we are bidden to throw 
the sword away. There is no finality in thought. Progress 
is always relative. In these days we are passing from one 
order of things to another, and all times of great change 
are full of danger and difficulty. Knowledge is every day 
extending, and the habits and thoughts of mankind are per- 
petually changing under the influence of new discoveries. In 
politics, the conservatives of today are more liberal than 
the radicals of fifty years ago. The old days of feudalism 
and slavery are gone for ever, and a more humanitarian 
spirit is at work. All lives are bound up together. 

"A starved dog at his master's gate 
Predicts the downfall of the State." 266 

The magic word Evolution, the greatest that has ever 
fallen from the inspired lips of science, has revolutionized 
all modern thought, and that which yesterday was only a 

265 2 Cor. 5 4. 

*» William Blake. 



204 The Healing of the Nations 

theory has already crystallized into an established dogma; 
and the term is freely used not simply as descriptive of cer- 
tain operations in the field of inorganic matter, or in the 
lower forms of vegetable and animal life, but in its larger 
sense as inclusive of processes operating in the higher realm 
of intelligence, morality, social activity, and religion. In 
theology we are travelling from faith to faith, from ortho- 
doxy to orthodoxy — from the orthodoxy of tradition and 
of a blind simple trust to the orthodoxy of research and 
intelligent faith. Views are openly advocated within the most 
conservative communions for which a man would have been 
cast out of the synagogue some twenty years ago. There 
is no cause for alarm. We have simply come to the start- 
ing-point of a New Science which will prove the most efficient 
bulwark of an Old Faith. Our little systems are but time- 
wrought pictures that fade in the light of their own mean- 
ing. There never was a time when men had a more grateful 
sense of their indebtedness to the past, nor ever a time when 
they felt less disposed to be slaves of the past. Men's con- 
ceptions of God may change; but the religious instinct 
remains indestructible. Such works as Kidd's "Social 
Evolution," Balfour's "Foundations of Belief," Caird's 
"Evolution of Religion," Pringle-Pattison's "Idea of God," 
Pratt's "Religious Consciousness," Bergson's "Creative 
Evolution," and Jones' "Faith that Enquires" are so many 
attempts to express in terms of philosophy the necessity for 
religion. Men's ideals of truth, as well as of conduct, are 
constantly changing. These ideals are for ever receding, 
for ever luring us on, for ever transforming and growing 
into something more and more divine. We all recognize now 
what a mistake it is to limit inspiration and revelation to 
the Bible. With Browning, we are bold to question and 
deny 

"Recognized truths, obedient to some truth 
Unrecognized yet, but perceptible, — 
Correct the portrait by the living face, 
Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man." 

Even so; our ideas of God may change, but the idea of 
God abides through all change. King Arthur always comes 



The Healing of the Nations 205 

back again! "The idea of God is the pressure of ideals 
upon us," 267 and is as insistent as it is elusive. He is most 
hidden and yet most manifest. 

With enlarging knowledge we revise our terminology; 
but it is the same eternal spirit reincarnating itself in new 
form, the same old evangel spoken in new language. Twen- 
tieth-century thought must express itself in twentieth- 
century language, that is, in terms and formulas of twen- 
tieth-century thinking. The poet "Everard Hall" (by 
whom is doubtless meant Lord Tennyson himself), in ex- 
plaining why he gave the old Arthurian legend a modern 
setting, said 

"That a truth 
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day/' 268 

rather than in the outworn, outgrown garb of days that 
are dead. The garment is only an outward, temporal, 
accidental thing that helps to conserve the vital warmth 
of religion, and therefore may be modified from time to time 
as conditions may require. It is mistaken loyalty to adhere 
literally and rigidly to the traditions of the fathers, and 
to cling desperately to every shred of the old garment that 
has been handed down to us with the wear and tear and 
dust of ages. "Why are ye anxious concerning raiment? 
Is not the body more than the raiment?" The healthy 
youth outgrows his clothes. In the spring the buds cast 
off their protecting scales, and in the harvest the withered 
chaff gives way to the full corn in the ear. Change is the 
great conservative principle in nature, which gives to life its 
freshness and beauty. Without it there would come stag- 
nation and death. 

We must not become slaves to tradition. Galatians in- 
sists on that, and Hebrews emphasizes it. Jewish converts 
to Christianity were not bound by the old legalism, the 
Levitical institutions, and the great traditions of their 
race. The new life in Christ must find its own expression. 
Paul never quoted Christ, 269 for that would be a new legal- 

287 Peyton, Memorabilia of Jesus, p. 23£ 

118 The Epic. 

m Note P.— P. 241, "Quotations." 



206 The Healing of the Nations 

ism; but he was baptized into His Master's spirit. He 
made the gospel of Christ his "own," 270 assimilated it as 
he was able, and expressed it in terms of his own generation 
and environment. Truth is great, and cannot be built into 
a stereotyped creed or a stone cathedral. "The words that 
I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." When 
the Jews said to Jesus, "How long dost thou hold us in 
suspense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly," they 
were asking of Him an impossible thing. There are some 
questions to which a direct answer would be no answer. 
Conviction must come by some other means and in other 
ways. You can no more confine the doctrine of grace within 
a syllogism than God could be limited to Solomon's temple 
or the living Lord be confined within Joseph's tomb. 271 "It 
was not possible that he should be holden of it." The Zeit- 
geist must find or create its own organism. Traditional- 
ism kills inspiration. But Divine inspiration did not cease 
with the close of the canon. God's revelation of himself 
is progressive; and if so, the idea of infallibility does not 
inhere in the notion of revelation. Nothing human is in- 
fallible, whether it be a book, or a creed, or a church. 

There is a sense in which the Bible may be said to be 
infallible, but not in a technical, formal, superficial sense, 
which would make it a literal authority on every question 
and relieve us of the necessity of thinking. Its authority 
consists not in the pronouncement of any man or any body 
of men but in the vital appeal it makes to the highest ele- 
ment of our nature, that is, to the best within us. There 
is no book or literature that offers such a tremendous chal- 
lenge to the intellect. It does not dole out truth in so 
many propositions, made up in neat parcels. There is no 
worse enemy to a living faith or a living church than the 
doctrine of infallibility and outward authority as commonly 
taught in "orthodox" communions, for it places the seat of 
authority without, not within, the soul. You cannot live 
on theological forms or propositions without becoming a 
parasite. An infallible standard puts a premium on mental 
indolence. Man craves for infallibility, for assurance; and 

*°Rom. 2 16; 16 25. 

271 2 Chron. # 4-6; 6 1, 2; Acts 2 24*. 



The Healing of the Nations 207 

orthodoxy offers it in the most fatal form. There is more 
than mere witticism in Lowell's saying that "all men, not 
orthodox, may be inspired." Strange to say, we are more 
indebted for every step of progress in our theological ideas 
to our poets and scientists than to the professional theo- 
logian. 

The Holy Grail is written throughout in a spirit of ideal- 
ism, an idealism that is not oblivious of the tragic realism 
of our world-experience. Over the entrance-gate to Came- 
lot was a great statue of the Lady of the Lake, elaborately, 
symbolically, and wondrously wrought. 

"And there was no gate like it under heaven: 
For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined 
And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
The Lady of the Lake stood: all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away; 
But, like the cross, her great and goodly arms 
Stretched under all the cornice and upheld; 
And drops of water fell from either hand 
And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
A censer, either worn with wind and storm; 
And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish." 272 

The Lady of the Lake is the Spirit of truth, or the religious 
consciousness, that makes and hands out Excaliburs, work- 
ing theories, to serve for an age, and then be withdrawn. 
The Sacred Fish is the ancient symbol of Christ. 273 Tenny- 
son was a Christian idealist. His motto was : 

"Ring out the darkness of the land, 
Ring in the Christ that is to be." 

He said that when Arthur came again he would be "thrice 
as fair." 274 Christ has often been criticized, judged and con- 
demned, and has not seldom been wounded in the house of 
His friends. And yet, somehow or other, this same Jesus, 
the Original Word which was in the beginning, the Eternal 
Son of God, denied, crucified, and killed, always comes back 
again more glorious than ever, and healed of His wounds. 

272 Gareth and Lynette. 

273 Note Q.— P. 241, "Sacred Fish," 
™Morte D' Arthur. 



208 The Healing of the Nations 

As John Stuart Mill says, "Let rational criticism take from 
us whatever it may, it still leaves us the Christ." Christ 
is a greater reality to us than ever. Indeed, there seems 
to be a new sense of Christ passing over Christendom in 
these very days. He makes a stronger appeal than ever to 
the men of this generation. 

And how many Christs have we had since we were Sunday- 
school children ! No age has understood or can understand 
Jesus completely. "Changed aspects of the unchanging 
Christ" fitly describes the changes of thought in regard 
to Christ which have marked the experience of one age after 
another. Each living generation in turn has felt the need 
of a Christology contemporaneous with its own thought 
and experience. Thus many attempts have been made at 
writing His life and assaying His work in the light of each 
new day and from various standpoints. In the last century 
and a half such works have been very prolific and have 
come from such representative writers (to name but a few) 
as Schleiermacher, Ewald, Strauss, Ritschl, Edersheim, 
Pfleiderer, Seeley, Liddon, Sanday, Schweitzer, Weiss, Gil- 
bert, Stalker, Orr, Denney, Drown, and Glover. "To write 
the life of Christ ideally," Dr. Sanday says, "is impos- 
sible. . . . And after all the learning, ability, and even 
genius devoted to the subject, it is a relief to turn back 
from the very best of modern Lives to the Gospels. And 
great as are the merits of many of these modern works, 
there is none . . . which possesses such a balance and com- 
bination of qualities as to rise quite to the level of a 
classic." 275 

The difficulty of such a task will be understood when we 
realize that it is the Word of God Incarnate — the Divine 
Logos — the ever-living Lord's nature and work they are en- 
quiring into. "In the beginning was the Word," from 
eternity, that is, there exists a rational principle express- 
ing itself in the order of the known world. "All things were 
made through Him." Creation is the beginning of Incarna- 
tion. "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." St. 
John identifies the eternal Christ with the historic Jesus, — 
the Saviour of the world with the eternal rational power or 
875 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, II, p. 653. 



The Healing of the Nations 209 

principle underlying the world. Jesus bore witness to the 
eternal element in His personality when He said, "Before 
Abraham was born ('came into being'), I am." 276 He had 
the conscious assurance of a filial relation to God which had 
not begun in time, but was as eternal as God Himself, a 
relationship into which His disciples may be initiated 
through faith in Him. "And we beheld His glory, glory 
as of God only begotten." 277 What the historic Christ was 
during His earthly life, God is, always and unchangeably, — 
an infinite and eternal moving power, working in all and 
through all the course of history. "His head and his hair 
were white as white wool, as snow," the symbol here not only 
of purity but also of unaging ancientness ; 278 "and His 
eyes were as a flame of fire," not only, as elsewhere, flashing 
with anger, but filled with the fire of immortal youth. "The 
first and the last," the contemporary of all the ages, in- 
exhaustible and all-sufficient unto the growing needs of all, 
He still remains "the Christ that is to be." Each writer 
has added his contribution to our knowledge and under- 
standing of Christ as he took his turn before the growing 
portrait. They each see and present Him under some dif- 
ferent aspect. 

It has ever been so. "When he was risen early on the 
first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Mag- 
dalene. . . . And after these things he was manifested in 
another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their 
way into the country." 279 We have exhausted Plato ; we 
know all that he had to say. But Christ we shall never 
exhaust. 280 Christianity will never grow old because it has 
never been new. The Word was with God from the begin- 
ning. He is the legitimate outcome of human aspiration, 
the necessary answer to human need, the very impress of 
God's essence (hypostasis, the substantial quality, actual 
nature, underlying reality, Heb. 1 3). That is what Au- 
gustine means when he says that Christianity is as old as 
the world itself. That is what John means by the "Lamb 

278 John 8 58. 

277 John 1 14, 18m. 

278 Rev. 1 14. But see Trench, The Seven Churches in Asia, p. 34 f. 

279 Mark 16 12. 

280 John 21 25; Col. 2 9. 



210 The Healing of the Nations 

that hath been slain from the foundation of the world." 281 
The thought of Christ, God's purpose of redemption 
through Christ has entered into the very fabric of the uni- 
verse. The cross is not an after-thought. Creation is an 
eternal act ; redemption an eternal fact or process ; and 
advent an eternal event. When Jesus said, "I go away, and 
I come unto you," 282 He meant one and the same thing. 
The withdrawal of His bodily presence meant His in-coming 
in the Spirit. There should come to the world a more in- 
telligent recognition of Him and of His gospel and an ever- 
deepening experience of His grace which He figuratively 
spoke of as His "second" coming. "Arthur comes again." 
With each succeeding age there comes a new sense of Christ, 
a new Christianity — new, not in the sense of denying any- 
thing that was genuine in the old, but as a fuller, freer, and 
more spiritual interpretation of it. 

How many times has the Bible been taken away from us 
and demolished? But it always comes back again after all 
the hacking and hewing and dissecting and burning, the 
standing literary miracle of the ages, and there is always 
more of it. "Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave 
it to Baruch the scribe . . . who wrote therein from the 
mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoi- 
akim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and there were 
added besides unto them many like words." 283 Mazzini 
points out in his fine essay on "Europe: Its Condition and 
Progress," that the individual conscience and social tradi- 
tion are the only two criteria which we possess for realizing 
the truth, and that "truth is found at their point of inter- 
section." And, therefore, "the manifestation of truth be- 
ing progressive, these two instruments for its discovery 
ought to be continually transformed and perfected; but 
we cannot suppress them without condemning ourselves to 
eternal darkness." Now this implies a change not only in 
ideals, in the instruments of education, and in weapons of 
warfare, but also ultimately in one's very personality. But 
in this quest, whosoever will lose his life shall find it. The 

281 Rev. 13 8. 

282 John U 28. 
483 Jer. 36 32. 



The Healing of the Nations 211 

Round Table stands first for the kingdom of the soul; and 
not only does the body change, but the personality as 
well, while the personal identity is preserved throughout. 
It stands also for the spiritual organization of society, 
which is continually subject to change. 

New presentations of truth, upon their first appearance, 
are often suspected and opposed. The young King Arthur, 
as yet untried, meets with a cold reception. 

"A hundred voices cried, 'Away with him! 
No king of ours ! a son of Gorloi's he, 
Or else the child of Anton, and no king, 
Or else baseborn." 

The warring passions at first refuse to submit to the sov- 
ereignty of the soul. 284 Others there were who, like Queen 
Bellicent of Orkney, said, "In mine own heart I knew him 
king;" and later they, too, said, "Who should be king save 
him who makes us free?" When Jesus emphasized the ne- 
cessity of the new birth, "Ye must be born from above," 
Nicodemus marvelled and said, "How can these things be?" 
And a materialistic age keeps on asking, "How can these 
things be?" Jehovah challenged Ezekiel with the question, 
"Can these bones live?" No profounder problem could en- 
gage the mind of man. The political and spiritual resur- 
rection of Israel was regarded as something ineffably glori- 
ous, and only to be accomplished by the power of God. 
"I will put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live, saith 
Jehovah." 285 The Christian doctrine of regeneration (pal- 
ingenesis) requires that a man be "born of the Spirit." 
Spiritual life, as Professor Eucken says, can be implanted 
in man by some superior power only, and must constantly 
be sustained by superior life. 

Time was, and not so long ago, when in all Evangelical 
churches the necessity of the new birth was constantly 
preached, and the urgency of individual salvation was in- 
variably emphasized. But of recent years, this doctrine 
has been relegated relatively to the background, its place 
being taken by a gospel of social reconstruction. We hear 
much also of heredity, environment, eugenics, and so on. 
384 Rom. 6 1.2-14; 7 22-25. ^Ezek. 37 14. 



212 The Healing of the Nations 

Of these, we have made father and mother and nurse and 
doctor and everything else. Thus the emphasis has come to 
be laid rather on the eschatological than on the spiritual 
idea of regeneration. But these are complementary, and 
not mutually exclusive, ideas. We had come to set our hope 
upon a new social order as the result of education and 
natural development. Dr. Johannes Miiller emphasizes the 
presence of a new factor in the Christian life, which carries 
with it the consciousness of a supernatural cause. This 
new life of the spirit is necessary for the attainment of the 
highest development. We are being called back to the be- 
lief in a spiritual world and in the realities of faith. Berg- 
son in France, Eucken in Germany, Bradley, Lodge, and 
McDougall in England, and Royce and Judd in America, 
insist on the reality and need of personal, spiritual life, 
with its witness to its own Divine origin. The hope of 
the world lies in the spiritual forces at work in it. Thus 
the latest development of idealistic philosophy, expressive 
of the reaction from the mechanical view of bare material- 
ism, and also from the depreciation of personality as seen 
in Socialism, corroborates our Christian faith in spiritual 
reality, and emphasizes the supreme urgency of the birth 
"from above." The sword of the Spirit, whirling with 
mighty strokes among the errors, follies, prejudices, and 
presuppositions of a false science and pseudo-philosophy, 
is "driving the heathen out" once more. 

Then next we find that the highest truth ever seeks to 
take to itself the most perfect form. The Word which was 
in the beginning must "become flesh" if men are to behold 
its glory. The ideal seeks to realize itself in the actual, 
to fulfil itself in sense. So Arthur weds Guinevere, "the 
fairest of all flesh." But Guinevere is not always true to 
Arthur; the actual falls away from the ideal, the physical 
nature tempers the spiritual. But the king is hopeful, the 
spiritual ideal persists, and in tenderest words Arthur 
speaks to the weeping queen — 

"Hereafter in that world where all are pure 
We two may meet before high God^ and thou 
Wilt spring to me^ and claim me thine, and know 
I am thine husband." 



The Healing of the Nations 213 

Thus are we encouraged to live and work on in the faith 
that these twain shall yet be made one before the face of 
God, for to Him and in Him they are already one. We are 
to think of society, of what we call "our Christian civiliza- 
tion," not as it is — full of selfishness and-all-of-a-wilderness 
— but as it will be when the New Jerusalem comes down out 
of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, a 
commonwealth founded upon love, and the apocalyptic vision 
becomes an earthly reality. "A map of the world which does 
not include Utopia is not worth gazing at." Trust the 
future. The dreams of yesterday are the commonplaces of 
today. The "madness" of one age becomes the religion of 
the next. The spirit Salems ever descending from above 
and flashing upon the inward eye, shall be the abodes of 
future generations. Movement towards an ideal, actual- 
izing but never actualized, is the very nature of man. Cole- 
ridge, Wordsworth, and others, thought surely that Christ 
had again vanished or been crucified afresh in the tumult 
and confusion of the French Revolution. But suddenly He 
appeared again in "another form" in the inauguration of 
the greatest missionary movement the world had ever known. 

Ideals change, the weapons of Warfare are changed. 
Arthur passes away and the "terrible, swift sword," having 
done its work, is flung into the mere. And the maidens 
mourn when Arthur goes, Sir Bedivere is loth to part with 
the precious hilt. We feel a natural attachment to the 
armor and ideals which have served us so long. We think, 
with the ancient knight, if we throw these away, that "there- 
of shall never come good, but harm and loss." But the Lady 
of the Lake only lent the sword; she lent it, and she will 
receive it again. 

It is equally true in the moral as in the organic world 
that without change and death there can be no progress. 
But Arthur will come again, and new weapons from heaven 
will be given to the champions of truth in successive genera- 
tions. For the Lady of the Lake is living still. She re- 
presents what is sometimes called the Spirit of the Age, 
which means the Spirit of all the ages, the Eternal Creative 
Spirit which in the beginning moved upon the face of the 
waters, an Intelligent Loving Will that broods over the 



214 The Healing of the Nationsf 

spirit of the world. We have hope, because at the heart of 
all forms of faith and being is the Spirit of God. Why, 
then, should we take our faith and religion at second-hand? 
The Spirit is here. The sun shines today also. And God 
speaks today. Why not live, then, in the living present? 
The Lady of the Lake is working now at some new, brighter, 
and more deadly weapon than even Excalibur, which she 
will present to some of my young readers if they but prove 
themselves worthy, valiant for the truth, 286 faithful 
prophets of God. For the prophet is he who has the word 
of God to deliver; nay more, he is so identified with his 
message that you feel, This man is the word of God — the 
glittering sword in His hand. 287 

By the Lady of the Lake some would understand the 
Church. 

"A mist 
Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom." 288 

But truth is greater than the Church. And in any case, 
it could only be true if we view the Church as the final 
custodian of the truth. The charge has often been made 
that the Church has proved herself inhospitable toward 
truth, slow and reluctant to acknowledge scientific discover- 
ies of the first importance and the "assured results," say, 
of Biblical criticism. The Church's intolerance and perse- 
cution of supposed "heretics" and martyrs of science — path- 
finders of civilization and religion — is the saddest chapter 
in its history. Conventional and formal religion has never 
been very friendly to v progressive thought. Organized Juda- 
ism killed its prophets and reformers ; and organized Chris- 
tianity has frowned upon all scientific discoveries as the 
enemy of religion. The attitude of mind developed by 
scientific work has not been sufficiently appreciated by the 
Church. All these indictments we are all perfectly familiar 
with, and are being reminded of constantly. And they are 
only too true. They are due largely to ignorance, to pre- 
judice, to indolence, to lack of faith, of the courage born 

288 Note R.— P. 242, "The Puritan." 

^Judg. 6 34m; 7 20. 

388 The Coming of Arthur, 



The Healing of the Nations 215 

of faith, and to vested interests. But it should not be 
forgotten that they are sometimes due to a sense of re- 
sponsibility ; neither should the fact be overlooked that many 
of the best known pioneers in the realms of thought and 
action have been identified with the Church and have worked 
from within the Church in the interests of truth and life, — 
the larger truth and the more abundant life. But to ad- 
vance certain propositions as working theories on one's own 
responsibility is a different thing from giving official or 
authoritative sanction to a set of dogmas as fully estab- 
lished certainties. 289 

It is no light matter to reconstruct the Church's faith in 
the light of new facts and ideas which are hard or impossible 
to reconcile with things which are invested with the sacred- 
ness of ancient traditions. The religious thought of a 
people, which is their choicest treasure and chief asset, 
should be held inviolate until that which should supersede 
or take its place with other truths in the religious synthesis 
has been indisputably established. But while the Church 
should not be overhasty in entertaining new ideas it should 
be the first to recognize the spiritual value of a new truth 
and the serviceableness to humanity of any new discovery. 290 
All the triumphs of reason must be consistent with 
true religion; and yet the belief is too prevalent that one 
must dismiss his reason if he accepts religion, or that they 
must work independently of each other. But the world is 
growing in courage and honesty of thought, and is not 
disposed toward any such compromise, and under such con- 
ditions religion is dismissed and reason retained. The 
Church cannot afford to resent truth, or quibble about it. 
Its avowal should be frank, and its adoption thorough. 
This means that religion cannot reject anything that reason 
accepts. The Spirit of truth is still present to guide us 
into all the truth, in a larger knowledge and deeper experi- 
ence of it. 

Let us have faith. Social orders and systems of thought 
may come, and they may go, but Christ remains, truth 
remains, the word of God abideth for ever. The City of 

289 Luke 1 1-3; Ephes. 4 14; 1 Tim. 6 20f.; Jude 3. 

290 2 Cor. 13 8; 1 Thess. 5 19-21; 1 Tim. 3 L5; Rev. 2 7. 



216 The Healing of the Nations 

God is a "city built to music," to faith, to fact, to hope, 
and "therefore never built at all," the best efforts, the high- 
est attainments are only relative to an ideal more or less 
elusive and never fully actualized, "and 1 therefore built 
for ever," 291 for the ideal is always insistent, luring us on, 
challenging our faith, impossible, yet irresistible, ever grow- 
ing greater and more beautiful, eluding our grasp, to appear 
again "in another form." 292 

Beautiful and great was the mystical city of Camelot — 

"A city of shadowy palaces . . . 
So strange, and rich, and dim — " 

clearly suggestive of the ethical theories and social institu- 
tions which the spirit of man through many ages hath 
built for itself in its long process of evolution. Arthur was 
greater than Camelot, for he built it; truth is greater than 
any of its creations. A man is greater than his biography. 
Christ is greater than the Bible. A fierce gale made havoc 
there, and Camelot was shaken and partly ruined, "which 
signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as 
of things that have been made, that those things which are 
not shaken may remain, and we may receive a kingdom that 
cannot be shaken" (Heb. 12 26 ff.). 

Excalibur may disappear, Arthur shall pass away, and 
Camelot must be shaken. But Arthur comes again, and a 
brighter sword will rise out of the lake, a more stately city 
will rise upon the plain. 

291 Gareth and Lynette. 

292 Note S.— P. 243, "Ideals." 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CHRISTIAN EVANGEL FOR THE MODERN 

MAN. 

"I woke, and found him settled down 
Upon the general decay of faith 
Right thro' the world, 'at home was little left, 
And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, 
To hold by/ Francis, laughing, clapt his hand 
On Everard's shoulder, with 'I hold by him.' " 

For Everard had argued 

"That a truth 
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day." 293 

Francis Allen, the scholar, sides with the poet Everard 
Hall against parson Holmes. In other words, the modern 
man, or modern mind, holds by a liberal theology of the 
spirit as against ultra-conservatism, traditionalism, and 
obscurantism. By the "modern man" I understand the man 
who lives in the twentieth century, and is conscious of it, 
belongs to it, and is not living way back in the first, fourth, 
or sixteenth century. He does not take his science from 
Aristotle or Kepler, his philosophy from Plato or Bacon, 
nor his theology from Augustine, Aquinas, or Jonathan Ed- 
wards, — great as all these were. He has profited by these 
ancient masters, but has also been driven by the exigencies 
of experience and advancing knowledge to carry his studies 
further. New discoveries are made in the realms of mind 
and matter, new problems, scientific, social, and religious 
are pressing upon us. Mankind has traversed a long road, 
always pressing on from point to point. And that temper 
of advance is more in evidence than ever. With a deep 

■■ The Epic. 

217 



218 The Healing of the Nations 

reverence toward the past, he has at least an equal rever- 
ence for the present, for he finds that God is out in the 
world today also. Living men are determined to be modern. 
They are facing forward and driving on. Our modern man 
says, and not lightly, "Let us mend our peace." 294 The 
ancient authority, whether of tradition, Church, or Bible 
is gone. No dead hand has hindering rights over him. 
Opportunity counts for more than achievement with him. 
He is amazingly alive to present issues, intense and de- 
termined in the pursuit of truth. 

Thoughtful, reflective truth-seekers are to be found in 
every walk of life, — among men of business, masters of 
finance, politicians, teachers and educators, jurists, physi- 
cians, journalists, scientists, industrial leaders, manual la- 
borers, and what not, and many of them are now lost to 
the Church, not because they have lost their religion or re- 
ligious consciousness, but because our religious conceptions, 
interpretations, and methods have become antiquated, sterile, 
effete; because, as ministers and church people, we have not 
been growing in intelligence and experience with the world's 
growth. In other words, we are too conventionally and 
medievally religious for the modern man. 

Many of the old terms and formularies have lost their 
hold upon the people of today. We need a re-statement 
of Christian truth, a new presentation of the Christian way 
of life in terms of present-day thinking and believing, a 
readjustment of the gospel message to modern conditions. 
And it is to be feared that education in the pulpit has not 
kept pace with education in the pew. The great bulk of 
modern preaching has to be transformed to meet the seri- 
ous needs and stern requirements of the present time. 
And that means no easy task. It will take courage, both 
intellectual and moral courage. But it is he that loseth 
his life who shall find it. Our leaders and teachers must, 
like Arthur, draw the sword out of the perron first, and 
show that they can wield it well. Or like Amadis of Gaul, 
who drew the enchanted sword from a rock and thereby 
gained access to a subterranean treasure, they must by 
strenuous effort make the truth their own. Whether out 

** Pilgrim's Progress, Pt. i, "Pliable." 



The Healing of the Nations 219 

of the anvil or out of the stone, it is laborious and fatiguing 
but most rewarding work. The foes of religion meet us 
with weapons drawn from history, philosophy, science; and 
we must meet them with better arguments and nobler views. 
The strong man armed keeps his goods in peace until a 
stronger than he 295 — stronger on his own field and in the 
use of his own weapons — comes and overpowers him. Some 
of us are too faint-hearted for the adventure, and many of 
us are too "tired." A minister refused to examine critical 
questions lest, as he said, his opinions might have to undergo 
a change which would terminate his "usefulness" to his con- 
gregation ! Another declined to attend a lecture on eschatol- 
ogy by a master theologian lest he should find it necessary 
to make a burnt-offering of a great part of his homiletic 
stock-in-trade. The minister's worth and usefulness to 
his community are, however, best attested by his "castings- 
off and takings-on." When his examiners asked Rev. Peter 
Mackenzie how he progressed, he made reply, "I could do 
much better if I had a softer vein," referring to his old 
occupation as a collier. He did not like the classics ; it 
was too hard a vein for him. But every miner knows that 
the hardest vein often yields the richest ore. 

Critical and constructive study in the interests of truth 
means the reconstruction of our faith and requires heavy 
toil. But this readjustment of the ancient and unchanging 
gospel to the intellectual difficulties and spiritual cravings 
of the present age will be supremely worth while in its ap- 
peal both to the learned sanhedrist and the obtuse sensual- 
ist, to Nicodemus and to the woman of Samaria. It will lead 
men to God, and enlist the interest of multitudes in the 
Church and all that it should stand for, who are now alien- 
ated from what is known as organized Christianity. The 
new task calls for courage, but not for recklessness, for 
which the age has little respect or tolerance. It calls for 
a spirit of holy adventure in thinking, but not for doubt- 
ful utterances. To preach our doubts will not help any. 
Leaven and honey, that is substances in a state of dissolu- 
tion, are not offerings to be brought to God. And therefore 
our task means unremitting toil. We have to struggle with 

295 Luke ii 21f. 



220 The Healing of the Nations 

mysteries and stubborn problems. "What I tell you in 
the darkness, speak ye in the light. There is nothing 
covered, that shall not be revealed." 296 The greatest ob- 
stacle to progress is the fear of thinking and of adjusting 
ourselves to new discoveries of truth. 

Let us notice very briefly two or three of the problems 
which confront us today. 

First of all, there is the scientific spirit of the age, and 
its influence in the changing of all creeds. Professor Hux- 
ley, when he set himself to number the scientific triumphs of 
the reign of Victoria, assigned the highest value, not to 
any specific discovery or invention, but to greater honesty 
of thought and the more general habit of scientific think- 
ing. As a rational being, man feels increasingly the neces- 
sity of endeavoring to comprehend as far as possible the 
world in which he finds himself, how it was created or came 
to be, and his own relation to inorganic and organic nature ; 
in other words, he wants to find his place in the universe. 
Nature is being mercilessly cross-examined and forced to 
yield up her secrets more and more. 

Modern man has discovered that the world w!as not 
"created," "made," and "finished," all in 144 hours, but 
that creation implies a process extending over mil- 
lions of years and has in it the promise of millions more. 
He has found that man is organically related to nature, and 
that nature is organic to man ; that he himself is an integral 
part and necessary result of an evolutionary process, that 
he is of one tissue with nature; that all life, as we know it, 
comes from a seed, a germ, a cell, a plasma. It had a 
beginning ; it grows, according to the laws of its own nature. 
Man is not something outside of, and an exception to, 
nature, but stands in vital and organic relation to every 
part and all of it. He believes that the human body, in 
which whole ages of ascending types came forth at last 
completed, is the temporary physical basis for the life of 
an immortal soul. 

Evolution is the ruling spirit of all our thinking and 
dominates all our efforts, whether in the sphere of knowledge 
or in that of social activities and moral practice. 
aM Matth. 10 26, 27. 



The Healing of the Nations 221 

The idea of evolution was here, and working powerfully, 
long before Darwin, although he was the first to apply it 
in a great way in the field of biology. There are evolution- 
ists and evolutionists. Not all evolutionists are Darwin- 
ians ; but if we reject the principle of evolution, what will 
the natural sciences retain beyond a mass of contingent 
particulars thrown together and waiting to be gathered up 
into a unified and rational system? 

Human society, with its creeds, laws, customs, rites, and 
institutions, has been gradually and slowly evolved and is 
the fruition of the primordial gregarious instincts that 
have struggled and striven up to man. The fact stands be- 
fore us. Mankind began low, and has been climbing higher 
through untold ages of pain and strife and struggle, drawn 
and driven by irresistible compulsions ; up to the savage, 
up to the barbarian, up at last to civilized man and destined, 
because the life of God is in it, to grow into a higher and 
perfected organization of society, "a holy city, made ready 
as a bride adorned for her husband," a divine commonwealth 
founded upon love. 

It has been a long and weary pilgrimage from the savage 
fetish to the Jewish Temple, from Caliban to Christ, but 
Evolution has illuminated and rationalized history and given 
us a God immanent in his world, behind it, above it, 
within it, "whose own life is involved in the fortunes of man- 
kind," who is "not far off from each one of us, for in him 
we live,** and move, and have our being." 

Does this seem to relieve man of his responsibility and 
to throw the whole burden of it upon God? God forbid. 
The idea of evolution which made it to be the "blind move- 
ment of unintelligent forces working out results along the 
line of least resistance" is no longer seriously considered. 
But the doctrine of evolution which makes God a real 
presence, continuous and omnipotent in the universe, the 
ultimate outcome of which is the self-realization of God in 
His gracious purpose and holy will, is of the very essence 
of the Christian evangel. We are not blind to the dark and 
tragic features of the long-drawn-out process — its sever- 
ity and apparent wastefulness — innocent suffering, fruit- 
less effort, and abortion, — many features indeed which to 



222 The Healing of the Nations 

us seem incapable of reconciliation with justice or goodness. 
But far from absolving man from the struggle with ignor- 
ance, temptation, weakness, and changing circumstances, 
it intensifies it. Savage and dangerous forces there are, 
into which the human being is thrown to test his powers 
and to develop thereby the utmost of which he is capable. 
Mystery, effort, pain, seem to be necessary to the making 
of souls, of character, the fashioning of perfect spirits, 
or any kind of moral world which is really worth while. 
"The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain to- 
gether until now," and we have to "work out our own salva- 
tion with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in 
us both to will and to work, for his good pleasure." Prin- 
cipal James Denney said, "Personally, I always feel that 
the ultimate effect of Darwinism must be to enlarge infinitely 
the area of responsibility." 

The theory of evolution is now generally accepted; but 
that does not mean that all evolutionists are necessarily 
committed to the theory in its Darwinian form. Even Dar- 
win himself was not thus committed. Evolution is the great 
cosmic process or movement; natural selection and survival 
of the fittest are only guesses at some of its methods. Dar- 
winism showed its chief weakness in its denial of teleology 
and its substitution of natural selection. Darwin himself 
admits that he had "probably attributed top much to the 
action of natural selection on the survival of the fittest." 297 
Herbert Spencer's mechanical view of evolution has been 
disproved and discarded. While evolutionists have pro- 
pounded various theories — Lamarck's inner developing and 
perfecting principle, Le Conte's resident forces, DeVrie's 
discontinuous variations or mutations, Mendel's law of 
heredity, Weissman's germinal selection, Bergson's creative 
evolution, and the like — none of which are necessarily the- 
istic, yet the scientific presumption is entirely and decisively 
on the side of religion, of a Divine teleology, and against all 
atheistic and materialistic explanations of the universe. The 
antagonism between scientific and religious interpretations 
has come to an end. Science has not yet pronounced its 
final word as to the history of our planet. Progressive 
297 Descent of Man (second edition), p. 61. 



The Healing of the Nations 223 

minds regard the evolutionary hypothesis simply as furnish- 
ing the key which is to open to us wide realms of knowledge 
hitherto closed. Theistic Evolution unquestionably holds 
the field as most in accord with our present knowledge. 
Jesus emphasized the law of evolution both in the natural 
and spiritual worlds when He spoke of "the blade, then the 
ear, then the full grain in the ear," 298 and when he likened 
the kingdom of heaven to a grain of mustard seed, 299 and 
again in His doctrine of regeneration, "Ye must be born 
from above," 300 to the truth of which the physical and 
social sciences bear their irrefragable witness. Paul accepts 
and expounds the principle in his doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion (1 Cor. 15 35ff; 2 Cor. 5 1-5). The Christian finds no 
difficulty in identifying the scientific "innate tendency to 
progressive development" with the Word which was in the 
beginning, and through whom he believes all things were 
made. He finds the same law of progress, healing, recon- 
struction — the same creative and redemptive power — at 
work everywhere. He recognizes the immanence of the 
infinite and universal in the finite and particular, or, as 
Lotze would express it, the self-revelation of the perfect 
personality of God in the progressive ideals of mankind. 
He finds that the universe means intensely and means well. 
The predetermining factors in evolution spell for him a 
gospel of power and good hope through grace. To the 
Christian evolutionist the relation of God to man is one of 
illimitable helpfulness, and not that of an arbitrary dic^- 
tator or injured sovereign. And while the Absolute Per- 
sonality does not override human personality, to him the 
evidence is conclusive that 

"Every virtue we possess, 
And every victory won, 
And every thought of holiness, 
Are His alone." 

He thus believes in the evolution of the human person- 
ality in a sense far higher, deeper, and other than any- 

298 Mark 4 26-29. 

299 Math. 13 31f. 
800 John 8 3-7. 



224 The Healing of the Nations 

thing that can be fathered upon Darwin or Herbert Spen- 
cer. 301 And by the same token, he believes in the correlated 
doctrine of man's divine destiny. 302 

"No longer half-akin to brute. . . . 
That friend of mine who lives in God, 
That God, which ever lives and loves, 
One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves. ,, 303 



A Suffering God 

Evolution, then, emphasizes human liberty and respon- 
sibility, while at the same time it helps to explain the place 
and power of Christianity as a religion of hope. "Each 
man shall bear his own burden" in the great world-struggle, 
but he is not left to bear it alone, for God himself has taken 
upon Him labor and sorrow. He is not a far-off, self- 
involved, abstractly perfect God, troubled with nothing 
save His own monarchical dignity. He is one with us, 
suffering with us, suffering for us. The Incarnation means 
just that. It means that you cannot keep God from a 
suffering world. And the doctrine of the Spirit means that. 
The Christian Trinity is not "a supra-rational mystery 
concerning the inner constitution of a transcendent God- 
head," but the profoundest, and therefore the most intel- 
ligible and ultimate expression of God's active interest in 
man and of the acceptance of His responsibility for man, 
as "a faithful Creator." 304 He is one with us, not by any 
means, in the pantheistic sense that "God is all" or that "all 
is God," thus denying human personality, with its moral 
freedom and responsibility, but in the sense of "a God 
who lives in the perpetual giving of himself," 305 who in all 
our affliction is himself afflicted, who makes himself one with 
us in all our sufferings and sorrows, unweariedly creating 
good out of evil, and carrying us all in His heart. Salvation 

801 Note T.— P. 243, "Darwinism." 

303 Phil. 1 6. 

303 In Memoriam. 

*°U Pet. 4 19. 

308 Priagle-Pattison, Idea of God, p. 411. 



The Healing of the Nations 225 

can only come through suffering. Gethsemane and Calvary 
were real experiences of God, and they are as real as ever 
today. Redemption, no less than Creation, is a perpetual 
process. 

A Moral Government 

Every page of the gospel bears witness to the pain of 
the Divine sympathy, the joy of Divine victory. The power 
of God, which is to "subject all things unto himself," con- 
sists not in the tawdry trappings of a Messianic war-lord 
wading through the blood of his enemies. It is the all- 
compelling power of goodness, righteousness, and love. The 
attraction and power of such a religion can never die. 
"We needs must love the highest when we see it." 306 "I, 
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
myself." A moral government is a government of moral 
agents, and a real triumph is only possible in the realm of 
the spirit. 

So that the idea associated with Premillennialism of 
a rule of force to succeed the dispensation of the Spirit, 
and the employment of physical force for the conquest of 
the world, the kind of means which Jesus refused to use 
in the days of His flesh, no longer commends itself to those 
who have a truer apprehension of the spirit of Christ and 
of the genius of His gospel. 

The Premillenarian assumes that the Church was sent 
forth into the world inadequately equipped for its assigned 
task of overcoming sin, disease, war, poverty, and world- 
liness, contrary to the promise of the Master. 307 All the 
forces of redemption are actually present and operative in 
the world (John 17 17-23). 

The "faith of our fathers" is "living still"; but the doc- 
trinal statement of that faith has varied from age to age. 
And once more the ancient faith calls for a re-statement 
in the light of our present knowledge. 

308 Guinevere. 
807 Acts 1 8. 



226 The Healing of the Nations 

The "Fall" 

The bearing of Evolution on many of the Church's cher- 
ished dogmas will be at once apparent. Take, for example, 
the doctrine of the "Fall of Man," the keystone in the 
structure of Latin theology, according to which Adam was 
created all at once a perfect man, all complete, in the 
garden of Eden, though very illogically they maintained 
at the same time that this perfect man fell at the very 
first brush of temptation. With Adam's fall came the 
imputation to all his descendants of the guilt of his sin 
and the transmission of a nature which was wholly cor- 
rupted, totally depraved, through his act of disobedience. 

Historical science teaches us that man began his conscious 
moral life at a low stage of development, with almost every 
element of the animal in him — animal appetites and desires ; 
that in the process of divine education he has come to a 
truer realization of himself ; that sin is an element of animal- 
ism that still clings to him, which in Christ is overcome, 
and that through Christ he enters upon his predestined 
inheritance and comes into the full liberty of a child of 
God, "being filled with the fruits of righteousness," "filled 
with the Spirit," "filled unto all the fulness of God." 

The whole mental content of the old doctrine of the Fall 
is destroyed by the new knowledge. And I take leave to 
doubt whether the conscience of any educated or unedu- 
cated person is now touched by a reference to Adam, or 
whether it causes one twinge of regret in any of our hearers 
as having themselves participated in his guilt. 

The unreality of it all is an offence to the moral sen- 
sibility of the serious-minded. Indeed, we find conserva- 
tive theologians, who cling to the system of Latin Christian- 
ity, interpret "Original Sin" as "a check in evolution," a 
very remarkable admission on the part of those who for- 
merly denounced Evolution as destructive of the very foun- 
dations of the faith. 

The beautiful story of Eden contains a far truer and 
richer meaning than that just mentioned, and has at the 
heart of it the germ of the Christian evangel. "The seed 
of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." 



The Healing of the Nations 227 

Biblical Inspiration 

Take, again, the question of the Inspiration and Inter- 
pretation of the Bible. There are those who believe the 
whole Bible to have been divinely and unerringly inspired, 
and equally inspired in all its parts, according to which 
theory the Bible writers were merely passive recipients or 
mediums of Divine messages and communications. They 
were simply the mechanical transmitters of Divine revela- 
tions. Genesis is no less authoritative than the Gospel of 
John; the histories of Samuel no more authentic than the 
Samson folk-lore; Esther has equal value with the Acts of 
the Apostles, and Jonah with Isaiah; Ephesians is no more 
inspired than Chronicles ; Stephen praying for his enemies 
was not more "possessed" than was Samuel when he hewed 
Agag to pieces before the altar of Jehovah; the Priestly 
Code was equally inspired with the Sermon on the Mount. 
And according to the same mechanical theory, we might 
say that Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning were no 
more inspired than Balaam or the Witch of Endor. All 
that lies between Bible covers is of equal authority and 
value. 

In 1863 the archbishops and bishops of the Church of 
England declared: "All our hopes for eternity, the very 
foundations of our faith, our nearest and dearest consola- 
tions, are taken from us, if one line of that Sacred Book be 
declared unfaithful or untrustworthy." No biblical scholar 
today, with any reputation to lose, would be willing to en- 
dorse a proposition so lacking in critical judgment. We 
hear much of the "infallible Book," a phrase that is being 
freely used to play upon superstitious minds. Infallible, 
truly; but in a sense far different from that claimed for it 
by our literalist friends. 

The case stands very poorly for the Bible if it has to be 
defended as an infallible instructor in astronomy, geology, 
biology, ethics and divinity, of equal inspiration and author- 
ity throughout. God is described in many passages as dic- 
tating conduct that would not be tolerated in any church 
member or American citizen today. Deeds and commands 
are ascribed to Jehovah for the like of which we send men 



228 The Healing of the Nations 

to the penitentiary. The Hebrew religion and ritual and 
political constitution are spoken of as if all given at one 
time by God to Moses on the Mount. But "on closer in- 
vestigation of all the sources we have come to recognize the 
important fact," as Dr. K. Kohler says, "that the whole 
of Judaism, its ceremonies and its doctrines, are the product 
of a continuous process of transformation and growth, and 
that owing to the changes of time and environment they 
were constantly subject to change and reform, however 
unconsciously made." 308 Paul took exception to several 
prominent elements in the Jewish law. Jesus recognized 
the permanent spiritual elements in the Jewish religion and 
the temporary value of Jewish institutions, while at the 
same time He exposed their incompleteness and the real 
evils in them. That He loved the law and the temple is 
plain; but that He stood above them in sovereign freedom 
is plain also. "One greater than the temple is here." "I 
came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil," 
even as the summer fulfils the prophecy of the spring, or 
as manhood fulfils the promise of childhood. 

This conception of the progressiveness of Divine revela- 
tion we owe to scientific research and historical criticism. 
With many, and among them some earnest and conscientious 
Christians, it is still the fashion to denounce that terrible 
"modern heresy," the Higher Criticism. But we must not 
forget that a generation is growing up that cannot, and 
will not, be kept in the dark. The covering-up policy and 
the half-way, compromising method are both destined to 
failure. "There is nothing covered up, that shall not be 
revealed; and hid, that shall not be known." Hostility to 
science and Biblical Criticism has proved greatly injurious 
to the evangelical cause. A scientific evangelism, however, 
is due to come out of the Pilgrim idea of perfect liberty, 
perfect honesty, and perfect frankness. "We thank God," 
as Father Tyrrell said, "that we are delivered from Bibli- 
olatry, from the tyranny of the Bible, or of those in whose 
hands it became a tyranny" and a Shibboleth, and that the 
Higher Criticism, the truer understanding, of the Bible is 
leading to a higher appreciation of it. It has torn away 

108 Hebrew Union College Monthly, III. i. 5. 



The Healing of the Nations 229 

veil after veil of illusion, and given us a conception of in- 
spiration and authority that commends itself to our spirit- 
ual reason and conscience, so that in a deeper sense and 
with a stronger emphasis than ever we can say, "The sum 
of thy word is truth." "Thy word is true from the begin- 
ning." "Thy word is very pure : therefore thy servant loveth 
it." Forty years ago Wm. Robertson Smith was removed 
from his chair at the Free Church Assembly of Scotland 
for his advocacy of the Higher Criticism as applied to the 
Bible. Today that method is accepted in nearly all the 
theological seminaries of the English-speaking world. From 
his study of the Bible and other literatures Dr. Smith found 
that Divine revelation and the education of the human race 
passed through successive and ascending stages to its 
culmination in the manifestation of God in Christ. To 
quote his own words : — "We are to seek in the Bible, not a 
body of abstract religious truth, but the living personal 
history of God's gracious dealings with men from age to 
age, till at length in Christ's historical work the face of 
the Eternal is fully revealed, and we by faith can enter 
into the fullest and freest fellowship with an incarnate 
God." 

In Christ, therefore, in His person and teaching and 
spirit, we find the paramount authority within the Bible, 
in the light of which all things must be tested and sifted and 
finally judged. Greater than Moses, greater than the 
Temple, greater than the Bible, He stands out as the Sun 
in our religious firmament. 

The Christian Evangel 

What, then, is the Christian Gospel or Evangel? What 
do we find to be the essence or fundamental content of Divine 
revelation? And Paul gives the answer with a stupendous 
simplicity, "to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the 
world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, 
and hath committed unto us (placed in us) the word of 
reconciliation." What is the method of redemption, the 
way of salvation and the Christian ideal of life? And again 
comes the answer, "We all, with unveiled face beholding as 



230 The Healing of the Nations 

in a mirror (reflecting as a mirror) the glory of the Lord, 
are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, 
even as from the Lord the Spirit," a transaction purely 
spiritual. That is the Christian evangel, the gospel of 
Jesus, and that is all of it. 

Take the words of the Master himself, "God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal 
life." That is the gospel. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God" passionately, "with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and 
thy neighbor as thyself." That is the law of the Christian 
life. There could be nothing simpler or more complete. Not 
one word do we find in Christ's teaching about the origin 
of sin; never a mention of Adam or the Fall; never a hint 
about total depravity. The parable of the Prodigal Son 
gives us His gospel; the parable of the Good Samaritan 
the law of Christ for human life. 

What is the gospel according to the great teachers of 
the Old Testament? "I have loved thee with an everlasting 
love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." 
"Jehovah ... set his love upon you . . . because Jehovah 
loVeth you" (Deut. 7 7, 8). "Fear thou not, for I am 
with thee; be not dismayed (look not around thee), for I 
am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee: 
yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteous- 
ness." "Come now, and let us reason together, saith Je- 
hovah : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white 
as snow; though they be red with crimson, they shall be as 
wool." "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth 
iniquity. . . . He retaineth not his anger for ever, because 
he delighteth in lovingkindness. He will again have com- 
passion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot; 
and thou wilt cast all their iniquities into the depths of the 
sea." 

What, again, is the law? "Wash you, make you clean; 
put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; 
cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the 
oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." "He 
hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth 



The Healing of the Nations 231 

Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kind- 
ness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 

And with this all the New Testament writers are in 
perfect agreement and accord. 

It is greatly to be deplored that so many extraneous 
and secondary matters should be imported into, and con- 
fused with, the gospel message. Verbal inspiration, the 
literal interpretation of parable, myth, and miracle, the 
virgin birth, penal substitution, physical resurrection, 
millennial theories, the personality of the devil, the destiny 
of the heathen, doubtless present many interesting problems, 
but not one of them is vital to the gospel or necessary to 
salvation. Yet thej&e non-essentials are given in much 
preaching of today a dignified place as "fundamentals" of 
the Christian faith. Men's minds are being "corrupted 
from the simplicity that is in Christ." Jesus said, "I, if I 
be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." 
There is our message, and there is all of it. A great engi- 
neer said that if he could only attach his magnets to the 
steel plates of the Titanic, he could lift it up from the 
depths of the sea, where it now lies. It is the business of 
Christian ministers and workers to establish the living con- 
tacts between the soul and Christ; between the human need 
and the Divine supply. Conversion is a spiritual process, a 
private, intimate transaction between the soul and God, 
not a matter of theoretical speculation. 

Religion is the communion of the soul with God; but 
betwixt beings absolutely unlike there could be no com- 
munion. It is because God's nature is essentially one with 
ours, because we are made in His image, that we can under- 
stand the revelation He has given us of His will, and enter 
into that fellowship with Him in which true religion con- 
sists. Morality is not obedience to an arbitrary authority 
under threat of everlasting torment, but sympathy with the 
principle or spirit of God's law, as the good, acceptable 
and perfect will of God. Heaven means obedience to the 
highest we know. Hell is not something arbitrarily imposed 
upon us from without. Hell is lack of character, loss of 
manhood, spiritual paralysis, a withered nature. Sin is a 
tendency of the will toward evil, the enemy of goodness. 



232 The Healing of the Nations 

Hell is guilt, shame, remorse, despair. Dante's "Hell" is 
out of date, although in its spiritual implications it is es- 
sentially true. 309 The doctrine of "frightfulness" has no 
power over tender consciences any longer. You cannot get 
men enthused over perdition. "God hath not given us the 
spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound 
mind." During the recent war, a well-known evangelist gave 
a vivid and lurid description of hell as he conceived of it, 
and pleaded with his hearers to escape its tortures. After 
the service a company of soldiers were discussing his words. 
One of them said, "What did he mean by asking us to flee 
from hell and save ourselves? Why, we are going straight 
into just such a hell as he describes, but with God's help 
we are going to clean it up." Men have shown a fierce 
indifference to death at the call of duty, and have often been 
fired by an ambition of suffering as much, or more, than by 
the fear of suffering. Today the gospel makes its most 
powerful appeal, not to our barbarous instincts, nor yet to 
our craven fears, but to the gentler susceptibilities of en- 
lightened souls, and to the sense of duty, in forgetfulness of 
our personal safety and self-interests, to join forces with 
the hosts of the Lord in the service of humanity. It is true 
that so long as men disregard the appeal of God's love, they 
are hopeless ; nothing else can save them. The despisers 
and abusers of divine grace put themselves beyond the power 
of recovery, so long as they continue in that state. It is 
also true that our conception of God and of His dealings 
with sinful souls has been humanized. It is the most in- 
spiring thought in the world to know that we are "up 
against God" all the time (Ps. 139), a God infinitely 
majestic and holy, and yet unspeakably beautiful and at- 
tractive. God is to us a holy and loving Father who is suf- 
fering with and for His children's wrong-doing, and is wait- 
ing and longing and working for His child's repentance and 
obedience. 

The three great fundamentals of the Christian gospel 
are these, "God is Spirit," self-moving; "God is light," 
self -revealing ; "God is love," self-communicative, self- 
sacrificing. 
109 Num. 32 23; Gal. 6 7,8. 



The Healing of the Nations 233 

Dante tells us, in one of his sublimest passages, that he 
knew he was rising higher and higher in Paradise because 
the face of Beatrice seemed to be growing more and more 
beautiful. 310 And those who interpret Dante's poem as a 
spiritual allegory, take Beatrice to stand for Divine Theol- 
ogy. And we, too, may know that we are rising, making 
progress in our spiritual life as we see more and more "the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," and our theology 
becomes more humanized. 

Theological thought follows the laws which govern the 
evolution of all other thought, and expresses itself in a dif- 
ferent emphasis, or a different perspective, or sometimes in a 
different interpretation of its very elements. The speech 
of one age fails adequately to express the ideas of another. 
Words are from time to time charged with fresh meanings. 
Compare, for instance, the philosophical terminology of 
the Athanasian or Nicene Creed with Sir Oliver Lodge's 
declaration of belief in the Hibbert Journal. Terminologies 
and viewpoints vary; emphasis is laid now on this, now on 
that dominant idea or doctrine. Hence the need of a 
periodical reconstruction of theological systems, the re- 
adjustment of theological belief to the new knowledge of a 
new age. It is recognized, however, that a true creed must 
find its historical basis in early Christianity, and that any 
admissible change or development must be in the line of 
continuity. And continuity is secured, not by the attempt 
to construct a new formal creed, but by the reinterpreta- 
tion of the old. This is not legalism or traditionalism, but 
a simple recognition of the laws of the human mind. So 
that while the formula may remain the same, the contents 
of the formula are not the same. Large changes and 
adaptations of belief are, in fact, possible within the limits 
of the same unchanging formulas. A savage and a phi- 
losopher may use the same words in very different meanings. 
In the teaching of Jesus there is no suggestion of stereotype 
rigidity, and he never ran to terminology. W. E. H. Lecky 
observes that "general revisions of creeds have become ex- 
tremely rare; but the change of belief is not less profound. 
The old words are, indeed, retained, but they no longer 
910 Paradise, XVIII, 48-64. 



234 The Healing of the Nations 

present the old images to the mind, or exercise the old in- 
fluence upon life." 311 There is thus a wise economy of 
nature by which the continuity and progress of human 
thought is at once secured. The natural growth of re- 
ligious thought and life is pari passu with human culture in 
its widest sense. 

We are travelling from faith to faith, to a deeper experi- 
ence of grace and truth, a larger human spirit, a clearer 
vision of God, a truer and completer knowledge of His 
world and ways. We believe none the less in the severity 
of the Divine discipline, though we believe all the more 
"that the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind." 
We emphasize none the less the urgency of personal safety, 
while we stress all the more the necessity of personal holi- 
ness and a passion for service. The benefits of salvation 
are none the less individual for being all the more social. 
Conscious of our indebtedness to the past, we cherish a 
deep reverence for the living present. Jesus is still leading 
the generations on, with His cross ever shining in front, 
not merely as a symbol of doctrine, but as a mighty chal- 
lenge and inspiration of life. The besetting sin, the hinder- 
ing weight of the Hebrew and Galatian Christians was an 
intense devotion to the religion of their fathers, which re- 
tarded the free growth of their faith in the gospel and 
checked their unreserved devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. 312 
The reactionary spirit has always been, and is still, in 
evidence. But Christ is calling us to an ampler, more abun- 
dant life, calling us to "leave the low-vaulted past," 313 
with its narrow outlook. Neither our loyalty to the past 
nor spiritual pride in our present achievements must be 
allowed to restrain the freedom or circumscribe the life of 
the soul. 

"Faith of our fathers, living still." Yes, and we have 
just been commemorating and glorifying their faith, as we 
recalled their first landing here in the year 1620. But, 
as General Smuts said, "It is a poor compliment to our 
fathers to camp where they fell." The fathers were pil- 

311 Rationalism in Europe, I. ii. 

312 Heb. 12 1 ; Gal. 3 1, 24. 

313 Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus. 



The Healing of the Nations 235 

grims, dwelling in tents, continually scanning the horizon, 
unrestingly moving on. They could say, with Cicero, 
"Wherever we go, wherever we move, the air seems as it were 
to make room and give way." 314 They moved on from 
the bondage of the letter to the freedom of the spirit, 
from the false peace and security of tradition and outward 
authority to the exhilarating and rewarding adventures of 
a pioneering faith. They had no mind to turn back. 315 
Like Abram, they kept "going on still," 316 digging wells 
for the living, digging graves for the dying, and staking 
claims to as yet unconquered and unexplored territories, 
which their children were to possess. What we should be 
more concerned about than the faith of our fathers is the 
faith of our children, whether it can live in the theological 
and spiritual atmosphere we have created for them. 

The call of the age is for leaders who shall combine the 
high intellectualism and broad culture of the Renaissance 
with the spiritual fervor of the Reformation. There is a 
new spirit of philanthropy abroad, which extends to all 
men, touches life at all points, and is consecratory of all 
human interests. "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; 
but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." B17 In 
times of transition and reconstruction, such as the present, 
above all else we need clear-visioned, loyal-hearted leaders 
and teachers, men of large and living sympathy, sympathy 
with knowledge, with faith, with doubt, with the enquiries 
that often lead to doubt, and who, by their speech and 
spirit shall interpret God to their fellowmen and reconcile 
their fellowmen to God. 



314 De Natura Deorum, II, 33. 

315 Heb. 11 15, 16. 



™ Gen. 12 9. 
817 2 Tim. 1 7. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 

NOTE A.— P. 17. Age of Romance. 

In his great discourse on the Faerie Queene, H. A. Taine asks, "What 
world could furnish materials to so elevated a fancy?" and then goes 
on to say, "One only, that of chivalry; for none is so far from the 
actual. . . . Who feels not, that, to speak truth, there is but one 
world, that of Plato and the poets; that actual phenomena are but out- 
lines — mutilated, incomplete, and blurred outlines; that, after all, in- 
visible forces and ideals, which for ever renew the actual existences, 
attain their fulfilment only in imaginary existences; and that the poet, 
in order to express nature in its entirety, is obliged to embrace in his 
sympathy all the ideal forms by which nature has been expressed? 
This is the greatness of his work; he has succeeded in seizing beauty 
in its fulness, because he cared for nothing but beauty." Knights fight 
dragons, radiant ladies wander in the green gloom of the forests on 
white palfreys. In the vast silence the sound of distant bells or a hunter's 
horn falls sweetly on the ear. Lions and nymphs and satyrs are about. 
Palaces of jasper shine among the trees. "A moist twig is cast into 
the bottom of a mine, and is brought out again a hoop of diamonds. . . . 
You will say it is a phantasmagoria. What matter, if we see it? And 
we do see it, for Spenser does. His sincerity wins us over. He is so 
much at home in this world, that we end by finding ourselves at home 
in it. He has no appearance of astonishment at astonishing events. . . . 
Venus, Diana, and the old deities, dwell by his threshold, and enter, 
and he takes no notice of them. His serenity becomes ours. We grow 
credulous and happy by contagion, and to the same extent as he. 
How could it be otherwise?" {History of English Literature, Bk. II, 
Ch. i., 188f.) 

Arthur in Faerie Queene is supposed to shadow forth Sir Philip 
Sidney. 

NOTE B.— P. 41. World Fairs. 

The first International Exhibition was held at the Crystal Palace, 
London, in 1851, through the initiative chiefly of Albert, Prince Con- 
sort. The exhibits had an estimated value of two million dollars, not 
counting the Kohinoor diamond. It was formally opened by Queen 
Victoria, the archbishop of Canterbury offering the dedicatory prayer, 
at the close of which the "Hallelujah Chorus" was rendered by a choir 
of one thousand voices. Six million people passed through the gates 
of the Palace during the exposition. That was followed in 1862 by 
another exhibition on a much larger scale, which proved still more 
successful. There might be seen the products of all climates, together 
with the masterpieces in art and craft of every nation under the sun. 
Visitors and official representatives came together from all the countries 
of the world. Similar expositions — their name is legion — have been held 

236 



The Healing of the Nations 237 

since in different and distant parts of the world. Here the nations 
come together, bringing their best, in friendly and generous rivalry. 
Here the world workers compare their products, glad to learn of each 
other, and provoking one another to greater and more varied effort 
for world-progress, all of which helps to promote the spirit of unity 
and to strengthen the bonds of peace between all nations. Temples of 
war must give way to the temples of peace. The world is gradually 
coming to a recognition of itself as a family of nations whose one 
organic law is good will to all and whose inspiring motive is service. 
The world has already become one great neighborhood; the next step 
will consist in the recognition of the universal Fatherhood of God and 
the universal brotherhood of mankind. 

"Uplift a thousand voices full and sweet, 

In this wide hall with earth's invention stored, 
And praise the invisible universal Lord, 

Who lets once more in peace the nations meet, 
Where Science, Art, and Labour have outpour'd 

Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet. . . . 

I 

O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign, 

From growing commerce loose her latest chain. . . . 

Till each man find his own in all men's good, 

And all men work in noble brotherhood." 

(Tennyson, Ode Sung at the Opening of the International 
Exhibition) . 

NOTE C.— P. 51. The Washington Conference. 

Three great objects, Senator Lodge said, were in view, — the limita- 
tion of armaments, the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 
and the safeguarding of the rights of China, especially by the return 
of Shantung. All three objects were attained, and attained in spite of 
apparently immovable obstacles. Its twelve weeks' deliberations re- 
sulted in decisions of the first importance. Seven treaties were signed, 
any one of which would have made the Conference memorable. When 
the United States Senate voted to ratify all of these seven treaties, 
it committed our government to a new policy in our international 
relationships and established a new order in world affairs. The vote 
to ratify in each case was as follows: Yap Treaty, 67 to 22; Four- 
Power Treaty, 67 to 27; Supplemental Four-Power Treaty, 65 to 0; 
Naval Limitation Treaty, 74 to 1; Submarine and Noxious Gas Treaty, 
71 to 0; Far Eastern Treaty, 66 to 0; Chinese Tariff Treaty, 58 to 1. 
The Four-Power Treaty is an agreement binding Great Britain, the 
United States, France, and Japan to a co-operative policy intended 
to maintain justice and peace in the Far East. Strong opposition was 
offered to this in the Senate on the ground that it was an "entangling 
alliance" which might eventually compel this country to take up arms 
in the interests of one or the other or all of the parties involved. 
The treaty, however, was ratified, by a vote of 67 to 27, on the adop- 
tion of the following Reservation: 

"The United States understands that under the statement in the 
preambles, or under the terms of this treaty, there is no commitment 
to armed force, no alliance, no obligation to join in any defence." 



238 The Healing of the Nations 

NOTE D.— P. 74. Good Government. 

Grotius was moved to write his great work on international law, as 
he states himself, by "the license of fighting which he saw in the whole 
Christian world, at which even barbarians might blush; wars begun on 
trifling pretexts or none at all, and carried on without any reverence 
for any Divine or human law, as if that one declaration of war let 
loose every crime." There were nevertheless certain influences, hu- 
mane and spiritual, universal instincts and usages, which restrained the 
evils and enormities of war, such as the poisoning of an enemy's wells, 
the violation of women, and cruelty to a conquered foe. His contem- 
porary, Hobbes, maintained that government in the last resort must 
depend on physical force. But temporal government is modified and 
in the final result controlled by the spiritual forces adduced and em- 
phasized by Grotius. 

George Washington, in an address which he delivered on retiring from 
the public service of the United States, said: 

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, 
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that 
man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these 
great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of 
men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, 
ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace their 
connection with private and public felicity. . . . And let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without re- 
ligion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education 
on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us 
to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
principles." 

NOTE E.— P. 76. Political Institutions. 

"In politics, though I ceased to consider representative democracy 
as an absolute principle, and regarded it as a question of time, place, 
and circumstance; though I now looked upon the choice of political 
institutions as a moral and educational question more than one of ma- 
terial interests, thinking that it ought to be decided mainly by the con- 
sideration, what great improvement in life and culture stands next in 
order for the people concerned, as the condition of their further 
progress, and what institutions are most likely to promote that; never- 
theless, this change in the premises of my political philosophy did not 
alter my practical political creed as to the requirements of my own 
time and country. I was as much as ever a Radical and Democrat 
for Europe, and especially for England" (J. S. Mill, Autobiography, 
pp. 170-1). 

NOTE F.— P. 85. Races. 

In Acts 17 26 R.V. "of one," which all the best MSS. follow, brings 
out more fully than A.V. "of one blood" the larger thought of the 
Fatherhood of God. It is not that men are all equal in God's eyes 
as having been all made of one blood, but that they all have one Father 
(as in Mai. 2 10). On the Unity of the Race see art. "Anthropology" 
(J. I. Marais) in The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, 
I, 147. 



The Healing of the Nations 239 

NOTE G— P. 102. Covetousness. 

Eerdmans maintains (Expositor, July, 1909) that the commandment, 
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house" (Exod. 20 17), meant to 
the Israelite, in distinction from the commandment not to steal, that 
he should not take anything of his neighbor's possessions that was mo- 
mentarily unprotected by its owner, and with special reference to his 
absence from home while attending divine worship. Cf. Exod. 3 4. 23 ff. 
The Oriental had usually little scruple in appropriating whatever hap- 
pened or seemed to have been abandoned or deserted. Exod. 20 176 
is probably an explanation of what is to be understood by "house" in 
ver. 17a. 

NOTE H.— P. 111. Cyrus. 

•Christian service has often been rendered by those who were little 
conscious of any Christian purpose and who would by no means claim 
to be called Christians. Percivale's sister girded young Galahad for 
his sacred adventure with the sword-belt made from her own hair, and 
"he believed in her belief." Many others have been unconsciously girded 
for their tasks and unwittingly served the cause of Christ. "The hand 
of Jehovah was strong" upon Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (Isa. 5 11; 
Jer. 1 4-10; Ezek. #14). They distinctly recognized the source of their 
authority to speak and act. It was different with Cyrus. "Thus saith 
Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, I have girded thee, though thou hast 
not known Me" (Isa. 45 5). Cyrus was no monotheist. He called 
Merodach "my lord," "the great lord," and himself his "servant," "vice- 
gerent," and "worshipper" (See Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient 
Monuments , pp. 138ff.). The prophet saw in Cyrus the unwitting 
servant of God in restoring His people to their native land. He was 
however, by reason of his large humanity and broad-mindedness, a very 
willing servant, and builded better than he knew in the service ren- 
dered to the people who by temperament and training were best fitted as 
the medium of Divine revelation to the world. And so it is that God 
often prepares men and puts it in their way to do for His church and 
for humanity what they had little expected to do. In which respect 
it would be nothing amiss to designate as Christians many whom we 
have been wont to call pagans, and heretics, and agnostics, and ma- 
terialists. "Wherever a man may stand in the modern world, in what- 
ever caste, class, or race it matters not; if he sets his face resolutely 
toward the Christ ideal for human character and human society and be- 
gins to move in that direction, he has a valid claim upon the term 
'Christian' as the most adequate form of self -designation" (W. L. 
Sperry, The Disciplines of Liberty.) Men are not always cognizant of 
the source of their power (Cf. John 5 12, 13; 9 36-38). 

NOTE I.— P. 111. M. W. Baldwin. 

Matthias W. Baldwin, American engineer, had just received the 
morning newspaper, and commenced to read it, when his only child, a 
little boy, climbing upon the father's knee, snatched the paper play- 
fully away, saying, "Bible first, papa; Bible first." The little one died 
soon after, but his simple words lived in the father's heart and became 
his life-motto. He became a Sunday School teacher and devoted the 
second engine he constructed to the work of the American Sunday 



240 The Healing of the Nations } 

School Union, and thus afforded the means for printing the first Chris- 
tian literature for the young ever printed in America by steam. Mr. 
Baldwin died at a ripe old age, leaving five churches in Philadelphia 
erected by his munificence for the teaching of the Bible and the 
Christian way. 

NOTE J. — P. 111. Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton. 

Two stories of a like import are told about Miss Nightingale and 
Miss Barton. 

Miss Nightingale had arrived at Skutari with her bevy of lady 
nurses. The steamers laden with the wounded had cast anchor at 
Constantinople. There were not yet any mattresses or bedclothes on 
the camp beds in the hospital nor was there a sufficient number of beds 
for the wounded coming. Miss Nightingale went to the quartermaster- 
sergeant in charge and asked him for the stores which she required. 
He told her that there was everything she needed in the magazines, 
but that she must get the Inspector-General of Hospitals to write an 
official letter to the Quartermaster-General, who would send her an 
authority to draw the stores, and that she might then receive them on 
showing that authority. Miss Nightingale asked how long this would 
take. On being told that three days would be the shortest time re- 
quired for these negotiations, she answered that nine hundred wounded 
officers and men would be in the hospital in three hours and that 
they must not be kept waiting for what they absolutely and imme- 
diately required. She then went to the magazines, and, having intro- 
duced herself to the sergeant of the guard there, asked him if he 
would take an order from her. He said he would, and she ordered 
him to break in the door, which being done, the wounded were promptly 
provided for. 

When Miss Barton was looking after the wounded men who lay on the 
Gettysburg battlefield in piles, she lighted a great fire to make them 
soup. Up rode an aide-de-camp and demanded, "Who told you to 
light that fire?" She looked up in his face, and quietly said, "God 
Almighty, sir!" 

NOTE K.— P. 111. Ueed, Lazear, and Cross. 

Dr. Howard B. Cross, of the Rockefeller Institute, went to Mexico 
recently to study and fight the marsh and yellow fevers at Tuxtepic, 
where fever exists all the year round. In two days after arriving there 
he contracted yellow fever, and* died shortly after at Vera Cruz. Be- 
fore he went, he knew it was probable that he would die. Able, brave, 
conscientious, devoted, and only thirty-two years of age, he typifies 
the noblest figure in the modern world, or in any age, — the man who 
makes the supreme sacrifice with his eyes open for the purpose of 
saving humanity from a dread curse, and he takes his place among the 
heroes of science. He deliberately risked death, as did also Dr. Jesse 
W. Lazear and Dr. Walter Reed, the two physicians who by their 
courting death in Havana in 1899 established beyond question that 
yellow fever was caused by the bite . of the mosquito Stegomyia 
fasciata, and by practical measures extirpated yellow fever from the 
island. Those two physicians voluntarily submitted to inoculation to 
prove their theory. The government recognized Dr. Reed's service and 
martyrdom by naming its great military hospital in the District of 
Columbia after him, 



The Healing of the Nations 241 

NOTE L.— P. 161. Santa Zifa, 

The patron saint of Lucca, where the magistrates were called elders, 
or aldermen (Dante, Hell, XXI, 36-41). "Model and heavenly patroness 
of domestic servants" (The Catholic Encyclopedia [1907], s.v.). Died 
1271. 

NOTE M.— P. 186. The Meaning of Knighthood. 

In France a knight was called a "chevalier," in Spain a "caballero," 
and in Italy a like name, all which names mean simply "horseman," 
the man that rides the horse of war. The Welsh "marchog" has the 
same meaning. The German "ritter" is merely a "rider." But the 
English word "knight" carries with it the idea of service. "Cniht" 
("knecht") is a "servant," and so was gradually evolved the idea of 
"knightliness," which carries with it the several notions of bravery, 
hardihood, generosity, simplicity, courtesy, chasteness, all grouped 
around the central idea of duty or service. Arthur's knights were all 
supposed to be Christian gentlemen, and Sir Galahad the ideal Chris- 
tian gentleman. 

NOTE N.— P. 190. Asceticism. 

In estimating the value, while exposing the weaknesses and ex- 
cesses of the saintly spirit in the world, Professor William James thus 
writes of the Revelations of St. Gertrude: "Intimacies and caresses and 
compliments of the most absurd and puerile sort, addressed by Christ 
to Gertrude as an individual, form the tissue of this paltry-minded 
recital. In reading such a narrative we realize the gap between the 
thirteenth and the twentieth century, and we feel that saintliness of 
character may yield almost absolutely worthless fruits if it be associated 
with such inferior intellectual sympathies" (Varieties of Religions Ex- 
perience, p. 345) ... In regard to asceticism he writes: "In its spirit- 
ual meaning asceticism stands for nothing less than for the essence of 
the twice-born philosophy. It symbolizes, lamely enough, no doubt, but 
sincerely, the belief that there is an element of real wrongness in this 
world, which is neither to be ignored nor evaded, but which must be 
squarely met and overcome by an appeal to the soul's heroic resources, 
and neutralized and cleansed away by suffering" (Ibid, p. 362). 

NOTE O.— P. 195. Ointment 

"For three days the knight fights a dragon, great as a hill, with 
sharp talons and vast wings, and, twice overthrown, he comes to him- 
self only by aid of 'a gracious ointment' " (Taine, History of English 
Literature, I, 189). 

NOTE P.— P. 205. Quotations. 

In Acts 20 35, Paul quotes Jesus as saying, "It is more blessed to 
give than to receive," which the apostle simply mentions as a maxim 
which found general acceptance among the disciples of the Lord. 

NOTE Q.— P. 207. The Sacred Fish. 

The fish (Greek ichthus) was early used as a symbol, or more 
correctly an acrostic allegory, of Christ, being evolved from the initial 
letters of the words Iesous Christds Theoti Ulds Soter (Jesus Christ, 



242 The Healing of the Nations 

Son of God, Saviour). Such devices were found necessary in times 
of persecution, when as a general rule the Christians worshipped in 
secret. The practice of the Arcana Disciplina (The Discipline of the 
Secret) excluded unbelievers and catechumens from certain parts of the 
divine service, and concealed the "mysteries" of the Christian religion 
from the pagans and neophytes. In Christianity itself there is of 
course no secrecy or exclusiveness, but it was found expedient to em- 
ploy cryptograms, figures, and metaphors in their services and in public 
so as not to arouse the anger of the heathen. The neophytes were grad- 
ually initiated into the more important Christian rites and pledged to 
secrecy in speaking of them. By the aid of symbols, signs and pass- 
words, the Church continued its mission in the face of bitter and deadly 
persecution. Revelation is full of these cryptic figures and allusions, 
which cause so much confusion among present-day commentators, but 
which were well understood by those to whom the book was first writ- 
ten and which brought to them timely warning and great comfort. 

NOTE R.— P. 214. The Puritan. 

Bunyan gives us the Puritan conception of the Quest and its achieve- 
ment. Among his characters — all of them living types — not the least 
interesting is Mr. Valiant-for-truth. 

"Who would true valour see, 
Let him come hither; 
One here will constant be, 
Come wind, come weather; 

There's no discouragement 
Shall make him once relent 
His first avow'd intent 
To be a pilgrim. . . , 

No lion can him fright, 
He'll with a giant fight, 
But he will have a right 
To be a pilgrim. . . . 

Hobgoblin nor foul fiend 

Can daunt his spirit; 
He knows he at the end 

Shall life inherit." 

"He called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, 
'I am going to my Father's; and though with great difficulty I have got 
hither, yet now do I not repent me of all the troubles I have been at 
to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me 
in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it! . . . 
When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him 
to the river-side, into which as he went he said, 'Death, where is thy 
sting?' And as he went down deeper, he said, 'Grave, where is thy 
victory?' So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on 
the other side." (Pilgrim's Progress, Pt. II. Cf. The Passing of 
Arthur.) 



The Healing of the Nations 243 

NOTE S.— P. 216. Ideals. 

"We have spoken much in the earlier lectures of the reality of 
ideals, as the presence of the infinite in our finite lives, carrying us 
Beyond the 'is' of actual achievement. But the ideals that are true 
and fruitful are struck out, or become obvious, in the stress of actual 
experience, and are only the fundamental structure of reality coming 
to fuller expression." (A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God, 
p. 407). 

NOTE T.— P. 224. Darwinism. 

Professor William Bateson, in his Inaugural Address as President 
of the British Association in 1914, speaking on "Heredity" said: "The 
first full perception of the significance of variation we owe to Darwin. 
. . . That he was the first to provide a body of fact demonstrating the 
variability of living things, whatever be its causation, can never be 
questioned. . . . We would fain go to Darwin for his incomparable 
collection of facts. . . . We read his scheme of evolution as we would 
those of Lucretius or Lamarck, delighting in their simplicity and their 
courage. The practical and experimental study of variation and hered- 
ity has not merely opened a new field; it has given a new point of 
view and new standards of criticism. . . . The doctrine of the survival 
of the fittest is undeniable so long as it is applied to the organism as 
a whole; but to attempt by this principle to find value in all definite- 
ness of parts and functions, and in the name of science to see fitness 
everywhere, is mere eighteenth-century optimism. . . . Tolerance plays 
almost as considerable a part. . . . Living things are found by a single 
experiment to have powers undreamt of, and who knows what may be 
behind? . . . We are just about where Boyle was in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. We can dispose of alchemy, but we cannot make more than a 
quasi-chemistry. We are awaiting our Priestley and our Mendeleef. The 
great advances of science are made like those of evolution, not by imper- 
ceptible mass-improvement, but by the sporadic birth of penetrative 
genius. The journeymen follow after him, widening and cleaning up, as 
we are doing along the track that Mendel found" (Nature, August 20, 
27, 1914, pp. 635ff., 674ff.). 

"It is never safe to question Darwin's facts, but it is always safe 
to question any man's theories. . . . He has already been shorn of his 
selection doctrines as completely as Samson was shorn of his locks. 
. . . What I mean to say is that there must be the primordial tendency 
to development which Natural Selection is powerless to beget, and 
which it can only speed up or augment. . . ." This primordial, innate 
tendency to development Bergson calls "creative evolution." Darwin 
gave us "a new point of view of the drama of creation; he gave us 
ideas that are applicable to the whole domain of human activities. It 
is true he was not a pioneer in this field: he did not blaze the first trail 
through this wilderness of biological facts and records; rather was he 
like a master-engineer who surveys and establishes the great highway." 
(John Burroughs, The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1920, pp. 237ff.). 
Bateson and Burroughs differ somewhat as to the importance of the 
accumulation of variations as the key to new species, but they agree 
with each other and with Professor C. H. Judd as to "the push of life," 
the priority of innate tendency over outward utility as factors in 
evolution. "We have been in some doubt in the past as to whether 



244 The Healing of the Nations 

society is based on instincts or ideas. We have talked about our 
institutions as intelligent, but studied them as if they were mechanical. 
Our whole treatment of human life has been biological rather than 
psychological." Dr. Judd believes we are "on the eve of a newer 
psychology" in which its rightful place will be given to human con- 
sciousness or personality. (See Professor Judd's Presidential Address 
before the American Psychological Association, The Psychological Re- 
view, March, 1910. Vol. XVII, pp. 77, 97). 



INDEX 



American Spirit, The, 37, 53ff. 
Apocryphal Legends, 155ff. 
Arthur, King, 14, 17, 22, 74, 187ff., 

197ff. 
Arthurian Cycle, 14, 17, 112 
Asceticism, 144, 189, 190 
Authority in Religion, 121 

"Balance of Power", 95 
Barbarism, Relics of, 65 
Beatrice, 145, 233 
Bors, Sir, 172 
Browning, 13, 16, 32 

Camelot, 130, 207, 216 
Celibacy, 22, 186 

Chivalry, The New Order of, 110 
Christ or Caesar, 107 
Christianity, 28, 31, 217 

Conventional, 67, 81 
Conscience, A World, 60 
Consciousness, The Religious, 30, 

76 
Covetousness, 90, 239 
Criticism, 14, 228 

Dante, 145, 232 
Darwin, 220ff., 243 
Democracy, The Growth of, 59 
Diplomacy, The New, 103 
"Disarmament, Mental", 47 
Duty, 80, 102, 193 

Emotion, 118 
Ethics, Christian, 82 
Eucharist, The, 150 
Evolution, 89, 203, 220, 226, 243 
Excalibur, 24, 197 

Fairy Tales, 15, 236 

Faith, A Rational, 117, 126, 215 

"Fall", The, 226 

Father, One, 85 

Feudal System, 62 



Galahad, Sir, 27, 130, 181 
Gawain, Sir, 130, 175 
Genoa Conference, The, 42, 71 
Geoffrey's Chronicle, 18 
God, A Suffering, 224 
Good Will, The Reign of, 73 
Gospel, The Christian, 229, 232 
Government, Good, 74, 238 
Grail, The Holy, 13, 23, 112, 129, 

147, 167 
Guinevere, 19, 25 9 179, 200, 212 

Hague Conference, The, 40 
Harding, President, 44, 56 
History, The Rationality of, 106 
Hughes, Charles E., 45 
Humanity, A New, 97 

Idealism, 200, 207, 243 
Idylls of the King, 13, 199 
Immanence, The Divine, 125 
Infallibility, 206, 227 
In Memoriam, 13 
Inspiration, 227 

Internationalism, The New, 45, 49, 
73, 79 

Jews, The, 35, 89 

Kant, 80 

Lady of the Lake, 197, 199, 207, 

213 
Lancelot, Sir, 25 9 130, 179 
League of Nations, 41, 50 
Logos, The Divine, 82, 207ff. 

Magdalene, Mary, 134 

Malmesbury, William of, 18 

Malory, 21, 137 

Man, The "Natural", 177 

Map, Walter, 20, 33, 112, 114, 147 

Marriage, 136, 139 

Merlin, 24, 78, 197 



245 



246 



Index 



Miracles, 126, 160ff. 
Monasticism, 185 
Morality, 21, 30, 78, 81 
Mysticism, 183, 192 
Mythology, 146 

Nation, The Ideal, 92 
Nennius, 23 

Nightingale, Florence, 134, 240 
Non-resistance, 34, 38 

Ointment, A Healing, 241 

Patriotism, 86 if. 
Percivale, Sir, 167 
Percivale's Sister, 128, 181 
Pleroma, The, 158 
Political Economy, 76 
Positivism, 30 

Religion and Morality, 30, 78, 81 
Revelation, Progressive, 121, 216, 

234 
Romance, Lure of, 14 

Science, 76, 114, 163, 220 
Shelley, 32 
Slavery, 66ff. 



Solidarity, Human, 72, 75 
Spiritual, Supremacy of the, 104 
Superstition, 119 

Table, The Round, 20, 27ff ., 91, 130 
Tennyson, v, vi, 13, 22, 137, 205 
Theology, 14, 215, 233 

Feminine, 135 
Truth, 14, 118ff., 122, 197, 202ff., 
206, 210 

United States, The, 36, 43, 51 ff., 
55 

Vandalism, 69 

Wace, 20, 27 

War, The Cruelty of, 68, 102 

The Cost of, 70ff. 

The Fallacy of, 78, 90 

The Outlawry of, 99ff. 

What Will End, 69 

The Great, 36, 99ff. 
Warless World, A, 40 
Washington Conference, The, 

42ff., 56 9 237 
Will, The Reign of Good, 73 
Woman, 63, 128ff. 



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